Shock: House Leaders Cave to Conservatives' Demands For Spending Reform

What a bizarre thing it is that the Republican Party actually votes in favor of reducing spending.

But the bizarre occasionally happens:

Lacking votes to pass the budget, House Republican leaders struck a deal yesterday with conservative members who had demanded reforms to the spending process.

The deal is a major win for the conservative Republican Study Committee (RSC) and signaled a rare concession from powerful GOP leaders.

Republican leaders had charged that the reform demanded by members of the RSC would tie the leadership’s hands and empower House Democrats. But realizing that they would otherwise lack the votes to pass the budget this week, the GOP leaders yesterday agreed to conservatives’ demand that waiving budget rules for future spending bills require approval by a majority of the House.
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Conservative proponents of reform responded that they liked the budget Republicans passed out of committee and that they simply want to enforce it, the reason they have cited for pushing budget reform.

“Our ambition was that members of the majority have an opportunity to defend the budget of the majority on the House floor,� Pence said yesterday, announcing the agreement along with conservative Reps. Paul Ryan (Wis.), Jeb Hensarling (Texas) and Jeff Flake (Ariz.). “If any one of the 10 appropriations bills exceeds the budget, any member of Congress would be able to raise a point of order and that would be subject to debate and vote.�

“I believe this is a significant step forward,� Pence said.

BTW: Mike Pence is a fellow blogger.

posted by Ace at 03:19 PM

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