Return to Washington Examiner Homepage
May 22, 2013 | 04:35 PM
politics
Washington D.C. weather
Politics

The deal behind tomorrow’s #nobudgetnopay vote

January 22, 2013 | 1:50 pm
Leave a comment

Last Friday after Speaker John Boehner issued a statement announcing a three month temporary debt limit hike, the conservative Republican Study Committee issued a statement supporting the move. The RSC no more controls House conservative votes than the House Leadership does, but the RSC statement was a positive sign for Boehner’s new plan.

Tacked on to the end of the RSC statement was this paragraph: “As part of agreement, the House will work to put the country on the path to a balanced budget in 10 years. House leadership also agreed to stand by the $974 billion discretionary number that is part of the sequestration process.”

Talking with conservative groups and House staff today, it appears that this paragraph refers to a deal struck at the tail end of last week’s House Republican retreat. Conservatives will vote for leadership’s #nobudgetnopay debt limit bill (which is now a suspension of the debt limit, not a debt limit hike), and in return leadership has promised to both allow the sequester to happen and pass a budget that will balance in ten years.

Separately, it does appear that 10-year balance will be House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s goal. “Chairman Ryan looks forward to working with his colleagues to draft a responsible budget by the April 15 deadline. He hopes today’s agreement helps spur action by his Senate counterparts to do the same. With the right reforms put in place, Chairman Ryan’s goal is to advance a budget that balances within a decade,” Ryan spokesman William Allison told The Washington Examiner.

Earlier today, the Club for Growth, which helped defeat Speaker John Boehner’s fiscal cliff Plan B legislation last December,  announced they would not oppose #nobudgetnopay. Heritage Action for America, the lobbying arm of The Heritage Foundation, has not made up their mind yet.

From WeeklyStandard.com

  • He’s No Nixon

    The thoughtful Carl Cannon has written a piece, " Richard Milhous Obama ," concluding that our current president has more in common with our 37th than President Obama's partisans would like to...

    Read More...

  • IRS's Lerner Had History of Harassment, Inappropriate Religious Inquiries at FEC

    Perhaps no other IRS official is more intimately associated with the tax agency's growing scandal than Lois Lerner, director of the IRS’s Exempt Organizations Division. Since admitting the IRS...

    Read More...

  • Yet Another Obamacare Design Flaw

    The more the evidence emerges, the more one has to wonder: Could Obamacare have been designed any more poorly? Even those who don’t mind Obamacare’s striking consolidation of power and money...

    Read More...