House approves bill preventing shutdown March 27

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Republican-controlled House approved leg­is­la­tion Wednes­day to pre­vent a gov­ern­ment shut­down on March 27 and blunt the impact of newly imposed spend­ing cuts on the Defense Department.

The 267–151 vote sent the mea­sure to the Sen­ate, where Democ­rats hope to give addi­tional Cab­i­net agen­cies sim­i­lar flex­i­bil­ity in imple­ment­ing their shares of the $85 bil­lion in spend­ing cuts required to take effect by the end of the bud­get year.

Repub­li­cans said the mea­sure was essen­tial to keep the gov­ern­ment oper­at­ing smoothly after cur­rent fund­ing expires on March 27.

Democ­rats who opposed the mea­sure protested the embed­ded spend­ing cuts and crit­i­cized Repub­li­cans for refus­ing to replace some of them with tax loop­hole closings.

Iron­i­cally, the mea­sure under­scored joint efforts by the Obama admin­is­tra­tion and con­gres­sional Repub­li­cans to ease the impact of short-term spend­ing cuts that kicked in with dire White House warn­ings a few days ago. At the same time, both are eager to pocket the full sav­ings for deficit reduc­tion as they pivot to a new clash over Medicare next week, when House Repub­li­cans and Sen­ate Democ­rats are expected to unveil rival budgets.

The over­all size of the cuts in the no-shutdown spend­ing bill remains in place: $85 bil­lion in reduc­tions through the end of the bud­get year on Sept. 30, half from defense and half from domes­tic pro­grams as diverse as edu­ca­tion, parks and pay­ments to doc­tors and hos­pi­tals treat­ing Medicare patients.

But leg­is­la­tion drafted by House Repub­li­cans to pre­vent a gov­ern­ment shut­down on March 27 also gives the Pen­ta­gon and the Vet­er­ans Affairs Depart­ment flex­i­bil­ity to allo­cate cuts that no agency cur­rently has.

Sen­ate Democ­rats seem likely to agree to the flex­i­bil­ity if it can be expanded to include other agen­cies, accord­ing to sev­eral offi­cials who described closed-door talks that also involved the White House. Among the can­di­dates are the depart­ments of Home­land Secu­rity, Trans­porta­tion, Jus­tice and State. The offi­cials spoke on con­di­tion of anonymity, say­ing they were not autho­rized to dis­close details.

The move marks a rever­sal for Pres­i­dent Barack Obama and Sen­ate Major­ity Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., both of whom spoke dis­mis­sively in recent days of Repub­li­can plans for flex­i­bil­ity in admin­is­ter­ing the cuts.

“The prob­lem is when you’re cut­ting $85 bil­lion in seven months, which rep­re­sents over a 10 per­cent cut in the defense bud­get in seven months, there’s no smart way to do that,” the pres­i­dent said Feb. 26 in New­port News, Va.

“You don’t want to have to choose between, Let’s see, do I close fund­ing for the dis­abled kid or the poor kid? Do I close this Navy ship­yard or some other one?”

Asked last week whether he would agree to flex­i­bil­ity, Reid said: “No, why would I? I don’t have a rea­son to do so.”

Pen­ta­gon offi­cials embraced flex­i­bil­ity even before the mea­sure came to a vote in the House.

The dif­fer­ence for the Navy is “almost night and day,” the service’s top uni­formed offi­cer told Con­gress on Tues­day. With flex­i­bil­ity, said Adm. Jonathan Green­ert, the chief of naval oper­a­tions, work could pro­ceed on the over­haul of two air­craft car­ri­ers and con­struc­tion on a third, all projects that the Pen­ta­gon had said would be cur­tailed with­out any changes.

The Pen­ta­gon did not imme­di­ately say whether it also would be able to order the USS Harry S. Tru­man to the Per­sian Gulf region, a mis­sion it announced ear­lier would fall vic­tim to the cuts.

What­ever the even­tual impact of the spend­ing cuts, the long-running strug­gle between the par­ties over deficits soon will shift to rival bud­gets under prepa­ra­tion by House Repub­li­cans and Sen­ate Democrats.

Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., chair­man of the House Bud­get Com­mit­tee, told reporters his plan would make rel­a­tively mod­est changes com­pared with last year’s blue­print, yet project an end to fed­eral deficits in a decade’s time. The plan leaves in place $600 bil­lion in higher taxes on the wealthy that Con­gress approved on New Year’s Day over the objec­tion of many rank and file Republicans.

Repub­li­can offi­cials said had dis­closed on Tues­day that Ryan had decided against accel­er­at­ing plans for a highly con­tro­ver­sial over­haul of Medicare, the pro­gram that pro­vides health care for peo­ple aged 65 and older. Sev­eral mem­bers of the rank and file have said in recent days Ryan was con­sid­er­ing a bud­get that would imple­ment far-reaching changes begin­ning in less than a decade.

The Repub­li­can pro­posal would give future retirees a choice between the exist­ing pro­gram and one that pro­vides ben­e­fi­cia­ries a voucher for their care. In its pre­vi­ous forms, it also capped the over­all cost of the program.

Repub­li­cans say their approach would help ensure the sur­vival of Medicare for future retirees.

Democ­rats say it would end the guar­an­tee of health care cov­er­age for seniors that has existed since the 1960s by impos­ing steadily higher costs on beneficiaries.

Ryan’s sug­ges­tion to accel­er­ate the over­haul drew objec­tions from some Repub­li­cans because it would have meant revers­ing a pledge the party has made to leave Medicare gen­er­ally unchanged for any­one cur­rently aged 55 and older.

The switch had few if any sup­port­ers at a closed-door lead­er­ship meet­ing ear­lier in the week, accord­ing to Repub­li­cans who spoke on con­di­tion of anonymity because they were not autho­rized to dis­cuss the session.

One law­maker not at the ses­sion, Rep. Mike Simp­son of Idaho, told reporters on Tues­day there was con­cern among some Repub­li­cans that incum­bents and can­di­dates in swing seats could be harmed in the 2014 elec­tions. “You’ve told peo­ple you’d be doing one thing” and then chang­ing the pledge, he said.

Democ­rats are poised to attack Repub­li­cans over their plans regardless.

Even before reports first sur­faced of a pos­si­ble change in the Repub­li­can timetable, Reid told reporters, “Repub­li­cans plan to make more extreme cuts to Medicare and Med­ic­aid, edu­ca­tion, med­ical research. They are in an unten­able position.”

Obama has pro­posed cuts total­ing $400 bil­lion or more to Medicare and other health care ben­e­fit pro­grams but has refused to accept the type of change that Repub­li­cans seek.

In his State of the Union address last month, the pres­i­dent said he wants to reduce tax­payer sub­si­dies to pre­scrip­tion drug com­pa­nies, impose higher costs on wealth­ier seniors and make pay­ments to providers based on “the qual­ity of care seniors receive” rather than the num­ber of tests.

“I am open to addi­tional reforms from both par­ties, so long as they don’t vio­late the guar­an­tee of a secure retire­ment,” he said.

Posted by Matt Echelberry on Mar 6 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.