House Adjourns Without Voting on Budget
The House on Thursday adjourned for the two-week Easter recess without a vote on a $2.8 trillion fiscal year 2007 budget resolution, "likely dooming its chances for the year," although House Republican leaders said that they would attempt to hold a vote after the recess, CongressDaily reports (Cohn, CongressDaily, 4/7).
The House budget resolution includes $6.8 billion in spending reductions for entitlement programs but excludes reductions for Medicare and Medicaid. In addition, the House budget resolution includes an $873 billion cap on discretionary spending requested by President Bush. Under the discretionary spending cap, spending for health and other nonsecurity programs would remain at about FY 2006 levels (American Health Line, 4/3).
House Republican leaders in negotiations this week failed to "navigate an intense, three-way GOP power struggle among appropriators, conservatives and moderates over new budget rules and spending limits," CQ Today reports (Dennis [1], CQ Today, 4/6). As a result, House Republican leaders had "to either pull the measure or suffer a humiliating defeat," the AP/Los Angeles Times reports (AP/Los Angeles Times, 4/7).
House Appropriations Committee Chair Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.) had asked committee members to oppose the budget resolution because the legislation would shift oversight of appropriations for nonmilitary emergency spending that exceeds $4.3 billion to the House Budget Committee (Dennis [2], CQ Today, 4/6). The emergency spending provision was part of a package of budgetary enforcement measures negotiated this week between House Republican leaders and conservatives, who had opposed the budget resolution.
In addition, House Republicans leaders failed to reach an agreement with moderates, who have sought an additional $7.2 billion in spending for domestic discretionary programs in the budget resolution (CQ Today [1], 4/6).
The statutory deadline for a House-Senate budget resolution conference agreement is April 15, but the House budget resolution likely will remain "shelved ... until at least May," CongressDaily reports (CongressDaily, 4/7).