House approves spending deal 332-94

House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio vehemently rebukes conservative groups who oppose the pending bipartisan budget compromise struck by House Budget Committee Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Senate Budget Committee Chairwoman Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., Thursday, Dec. 12, 2013, during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington. Boehner said the GOP leadership has had enough tea party-driven intransigence in Congress and he doesnt care what they think. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio vehemently rebukes conservative groups who oppose the pending bipartisan budget compromise struck by House Budget Committee Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Senate Budget Committee Chairwoman Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., Thursday, Dec. 12, 2013, during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington. Boehner said the GOP leadership has had enough tea party-driven intransigence in Congress and he doesnt care what they think. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

WASHINGTON - The House voted Thursday night to ease across-the-board federal spending cuts and prevent future government shutdowns. Earlier, Speaker John Boehner criticized Tea Party-aligned conservative groups campaigning for the measure’s defeat.

The budget legislation, backed by the White House, cleared on a vote of 332-94, with majorities of Republicans and Democrats voting in favor.

Final passage is expected next week in the Senate.

But as the House was wrapping up its business for the year Thursday, it left the farm bill unfinished, making it likely that the law will lapse at the end of the year.

The House acted on the budget measure after Boehner assailed the conservative groups opposing it.

“I think they’re misleading their followers,” the Ohio Republican said of the groups, which he also blamed for the fall’s politically damaging partial government shutdown. “I think they’re pushing our members in places where they don’t want to be. And frankly, I just think that they’ve lost all credibility” by opposing legislation before the details are known.

He mentioned no organizations by name, although Heritage Action and the Club for Growth have sought in recent months to push the House further to the right than the Republican leadership has been willing to go.

Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., a chief GOP architect of the deal, made the conservatives’ case for support. The measure “reduces the deficit by $23 billion. It does not raise taxes and it cuts spending in a smarter way,” said Ryan, the House Budget Committee’s chairman.

Despite the bill’s passage, conservatives fumed that the plan didn’t take the kind of bold steps to reduce spending and deficits they have long sought.Democrats were not pleased that the package didn’t tackle emergency unemployment benefits, which expire Dec. 28.

“We’re unhappy, we’re very unhappy about it, but not enough to say therefore we’re going to make matters worse by not having an agreement,” said House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California, who voted for the measure.

The second-ranking Democrat, Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, voted against the measure, noting that he represents 62,000 federal workers and that future government employees will pay higher pensions costs because of the bill.

However, he said, “this agreement is better than the alternative” of ever deeper across-the-board cuts.

The agreement, negotiated by Ryan and Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington - and endorsed by the White House - sets overall spending levels for the current budget year and the one that begins on Oct. 1, 2014, to eliminate the possibility of another government shutdown.

The measure erases $63 billion in across-the-board cuts set for January and early 2015 on domestic and defense programs, leaving about $140 billion in reductions in place. On the other side of the budget ledger, it projects savings of $85 billion over the coming decade, enough to show a deficit reduction of about $23 billion over the 10-year period.

The cuts would be replaced with savings generated from dozens of sources. Among them are higher airline security fees, curbs on the pension benefits of new federal workers, and additional costs for corporations whose pensions are guaranteed by the federal government. The measure also slows the annual cost-of-living increase in benefits for military retirees under the age of 62.

The bill includes a 90-day provision that postpones a 20 percent cut in reimbursements for doctors who treat Medicare patients and replaces it with an increase of 0.5 percent.

The combination of short-term spending increases and long-term savings will send deficits higher for the current budget year and each of the next two, a departure from the conservative orthodoxy that Republicans have enforced since taking control of the House three years ago.

The plan would set U.S. spending at about $1.01 trillion for this fiscal year, higher than the $967 billion required in a 2011 budget plan.

That was a step too far for many Republicans, including some seeking election to the Senate next year.

Rep. Jack Kingston of Georgia, one of several Senate hopefuls from his state, said earlier Thursday that he would vote against the legislation. He said the existing across-the-board cuts “have a tendency to cut out muscle with fat, but it’s still the only tool in town for cutting spending.”

Other Republicans said that despite shortcomings, the bill was the best the party couldget in divided government.

“We have Republican- and Democratic-controlled houses, and as a result no one solution is possible,” said Rep. Darrell Issa of California. Echoing Boehner’s sentiments, he said of the outside groups, “What do they want, another government shutdown? If so, they ought to run for Congress.”

Democrats were conflicted, but for different reasons.

There was general support for easing across-the-board reductions in programs like education, Head Start and transportation - deficit reduction that Rep. Louise Slaughter of New York called a disaster. Yet Democrats were unhappy that the measure lacked an extension of unemployment benefits due to expire Dec. 28.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland asked for a separate vote on that issue, but Republicans refused. The expiring program provides benefits to people who have been without work for more than 26 weeks. The cost of a one-year extension was put at $25 billion.

The debate on the House floor was overshadowed by Boehner’s comments at his news conference.

The speaker has been criticized by some Republicans this year who accused him of buckling under pressure from outside groups and their allies in the rank and file. He was elected to a second term as speaker in January after an attempt to oust him collapsed.

The October shutdown, which was the result of an attempt by some conservatives to kill President Barack Obama’s health-care law, seemed on Boehner’s mind.

“They pushed us into this fight to defund Obamacare and to shut down the government. … That wasn’t exactly the strategy that I had in mind,” he said. “But if you recall, the day before the government reopened, one of the people that - one of these groups stood up and said, ‘Well, we never really thought it would work.’Are you kidding me?”

Boehner’s remarks were part of a broader response by the Republican establishment as it struggles to counter the influence of organizations like Heritage Action, the Club for Growth, and the Senate Conservatives Fund.

The Senate Republican campaign organization, effectively an extension of the leadership, let it be known it would not give any business to Jamestown Associates, an advertising firm that has worked for the Senate Conservatives Fund.

Republican officials have urged traditional political allies like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to step up their involvement in campaigns as a way to counter the influence of Tea Party-aligned groups.

Dan Holler, a spokesman for Heritage Action, rebuffed Boehner’s accusation that opposition to the legislation was uninformed.

“Everything was widely known about what this deal was. We were concerned it was going to increase spending in the near term, and it does. We were concerned it was going to increase deficits in the near term, and it does.”

The Club for Growth issued a statement that took no note of Boehner’s comments. It urged lawmakers to oppose the legislation, calling it “a deliberate attempt to avoid modest but much-needed spending cuts in exchange for the promise of spending cuts in the future.”

Despite Boehner’s remarks Thursday, some conservatives wouldn’t relent.

“It’s one thing to say it’s a crap sandwich and you’ve got to eat it. It’s another thing to say it’s the best thing ever, you’ll love it,” said Rep. Tim Huelskamp, R-Kan., who voted against the bill.

Meanwhile, an agreement on the farm bill - the subject of ongoing disagreements between Republicans and Democrats over funding for food stamps, expanding crop insurance for farmers, and other issues - remained elusive. All the House could pass Thursday was a one-month extension of the current law, which Senate Democrats oppose because they want a new bill.

The House passed the extension amid fears that the expiration of dairy subsidies at the end of the year will cause milk prices to rise. But Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has assured Congress that will not happen before the end of January.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has said the Senate will not pass an extension because it is unnecessary. Some senators argue an extension could reduce pressure to pass a farm bill.

Information for this article was contributed by David Espo, Andrew Taylor and Mary Clare Jalonick of The Associated Press; by David Lightman, William Douglas and Kevin G. Hall of McClatchy Washington Bureau; by Heidi Przybyla, Derek Wallbank, Richard Rubin, Roxana Tiron and Laura Litvan of Bloomberg News; and by Jonathan Weisman and Jeremy W. Peters of The New York Times.

Arkansas’ members split 2-2 on budget bill

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Front Section, Pages 1 on 12/13/2013

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