If there was ever any doubt about it, yesterday removed it — the Tea Party has arrived on Capitol Hill.
The revolt of freshman and conservative Republicans over spending cuts for this fiscal year ended almost before it began, because it prevailed so rapidly. The rebellion started in rumblings back in the lawmakers’ districts; gathered in the defiance of Republican dissenters on the appropriations committee; and reached full force at yesterday’s conference meeting, knocking GOP leaders back on their heels and quickly convincing them to give in to the Tea Party’s demands.
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“We may be freshmen, we may be rookies in this game,” says Rep. Steve Womack (R., Ark.). “But there is no question that the leadership respects our opinion.”
GOP freshmen were frustrated when, earlier this month, House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) released his proposal to cut $58 billion in non-security spending for the remainder of the fiscal year. Perhaps more than anything, they were confused. To begin with, it wasn’t exactly clear how much money they were planning to cut — in addition to Ryan’s $58 billion, the numbers $74 billion, $43 billion, and $32 billion were floating around. It seemed that few could agree, because it depended on what baseline and category of spending you were using.
Whatever the actual figure, it was short of the $100 billion Republicans had promised to cut in the “Pledge to America.” And when new members were dispatched to their districts to explain how the GOP plan “technically” did cut $100 billion — the resolution covers only seven-twelfths of the fiscal year, and $58 billion is seven-twelfths of $100 billion — they grew more confused and frustrated.
This was the prevailing attitude when House members returned from last week’s district-work period. Rep. Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) and other members of the Republican Study Committee promised to introduce an amendment that would tack on an additional $42 billion in cuts in order to hit $100 billion. Then came the first rumblings of a genuine revolt. On Tuesday evening, the House Appropriations Committee voted to move forward with a continuing resolution drafted using Ryan’s $58 billion in cuts. Even though the proposal passed the committee 27–22, two Republicans — Reps. Jeff Flake (R., Ariz.) and Cynthia Lummis (R., Wyo.) — cast “no” votes to protest the inadequacy of the cuts. In a further act of defiance, Flake filed a dissenting view in the committee’s report, a move that members of the majority party rarely make.
That contentious atmosphere carried over into Wednesday morning’s closed conference meeting, where Flake and Lummis were joined by dozens of freshmen in urging the party leadership to include further cuts in the continuing resolution — if anything, to make it easier to defend, and to remove all ambiguity regarding the Pledge. A GOP source tells National Review Online that a number of members rallied around Flake’s argument that “if you’re explaining things after the fact, you’re probably losing the battle.” In other words, “technically” fulfilling a pledge just wouldn’t cut it.
Representative Womack, a freshman member of the Appropriations Committee, says Flake’s comments really struck a chord. Womack admits to being rather confounded by the less-than-straightforward rhetoric surrounding Ryan’s numbers. At first, he chalked it up to being new and unfamiliar with the ways of Congress, but he soon found that he wasn’t alone. “I think most of us realized that the numbers we’re reporting and the budgets we’re referring need to be articulated in such a way that the American people can understand and that we can understand,” Womack says. “Even though there’s an argument for [adjusting the numbers to reflect the fiscal year], there’s still a demand for cuts that would match the Pledge.”
My God, with the bloated monstrosity that the federal government has become, it should be ridiculously easy to cut not just $100B, but $200B, $400B, etc., etc. By this time the GOP should have a well-developed plan of such cuts already in place and ready to go at a moment's notice. Thank God for the Tea Party to hold the GOP's feet to the fire, and also that the slightest mention of the Tea Party sets off typical progressives and their trolls into an hysterical mouth-frothing frenzy.
"What weasel-maneuver will be pulled to keep the promised cuts from actually occurring?"
next is:
"Is there any way to poison-pill-proof the cuts so that the agencies being cut can't simply screw things up on purpose and blame the problems on the cuts?"
I'll take this as a good piece of news at the end of a day chock full of bad.
An (R) scandal in the House, which ended almost before it could make headlines thank you Mr. Boehner, prefaced Senator Kyl's announcement of planned retirement. I wondered why he was announcing it now.
A friend suggested that more of the older establishment Repubs would be leaving because they wouldn't be comfortable with actions of the eager and fiscally responsible new blood. This article gives that credence.
Especially interesting is the report that Representative Flake was a main instigator in the House as his name was floated in some circles as a possible candidate for Kyl's seat.
So we had two years of a drunken spending binge by the Democratically controlled Congress, the GOP has been sworn in for about a month now and you are unhappy? 100 billion cut is better than 100 billion added, which would have happened already if it were not for the change in November.
God Almighty, no negativism please from the Peanut Gallery, please. This may be the revolution Gingrich promised. There actually may be real cuts. Has that ever happened? Freshmen congressmen, fellow Tea Partyers -- KEEP IT UP. You are correct and you are right and you are (gasp!) only trying to fulfill what you what you pledged to do if elected. I'll write it again: KEEP IT UP. You are starting to bring sense to budgeting, culpability to elected officials when necessary, and maybe freedom, hope and a positive American future, not just Super Bowl commercial slick cynical versions of it. Kudos to the leadership for recognizing doing the right thing is the right thing itself so swiftly.
I am excited at what you are doing. Keep me excited.
This is pathetic, Republicans. You need to cut way more than even the paltry $100 billion. We are broke. We are trillions in debt. Cut, cut, cut! Cut the welfare state. Cut Medicaid. Cut WIC. Cut Food Stamps. Cut all of these dependency programs that create a culture of poverty. Some of the lazy bums getting free federal freebies may get a job and start paying taxes. Imagine that! We should be cutting $1 trillion this year. But no, we are fighting over one tenth of that amount.
The chicanery here is baseline budgeting. Cut $100 billion from Obama's wish list? I've been around too long and hustled often enough to fall for that pile of - stuff.
This is 2011, right? Let's take the way back machine into the distant past. Like 2007. Using the government's own numbers - no need to argue, it's what they said - inflation amounted to less than 10%. How about 2007 + 10%? I actually remember 2007. The wagons in the streets and the cries to "bring out your dead!".
I slogged the mean streets to elect to elect a bunch of nebishes? Get serious dummies! Next time I'll carry a sign, or something.
Marco DePalin,
I love your screen name.
It seems to me that cutting spending should be easier than this. First of all what about that pledge to put the unspent stimulus money back into the budget?
Even if we know the Senate will not pass it, we should give them a much bigger base line of cuts before we surrender so easily.
I went back and read the Pledge. It didn't say "...subject to a pro rata adjustment taking into account the fact that we'll be dealing with fewer than 12 remaining months in the fiscal year."
It says that we will save "...at least $100 billion in the first year alone." Period.
If it requires a revolt to get the republican leadership to agree to a paltry(!) $100B of actual spending cuts, there is ample reason to be skeptical.
Note this is happening before confronting the democrats, and consider how often in the past the senior republican negotiators have folded like cheap card tables.
The electorate needs to stay on these people like white on rice.
Garandman, I appreciate your comment. However, you can also "put out" a raging house fire with an eyedropper can't you? It's just that the damage to your house while you are "putting out" the fire makes the effort pointless.
Our house is burning NOW, set ablaze by every politician who ever voted for a budget with a deficit, and turned into a raging inferno by Obama and his more than willing Democrat accomplices in Congress.
Obama, Pelosi, and Reid knew they had limited time to do maximum damage, and they did exactly that. The people elected the Tea Party to try to put out the obvious fire and reverse the damage and now the Republicans-just the Republicans mind you-are now squabling over $100 billion in cuts, or 1/15th of our children's annual descension into future poverty. In other words, whether the deficit should be $1.5 TRILLION this year or $1.4 TRILLION.
Obama and his cohorts must be laughing at the sight of it as they begin to implement his bailout of the worst of the deficit spending states and the Democrat-friendly unions that broke them. And laughing at the sight of us as we continue at supersonic speed ahead into the massive stone wall ahead--although at 1,400 mph now (maybe) intead of 1,500 mph.
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