The House Republicans are already gearing up for what is likely to be another consequential, and perhaps divisive, spending vote.

The so-called supercommittee, a twelve-member panel created in August as part of the bipartisan deal to raise the debt ceiling, has until November 23 to produce at least $1.2 trillion in savings over the next decade. Congress must then vote on the committee’s plan sometime before Christmas. Like previous high-profile spending votes, this one is sure to have far-reaching implications, with the potential to expose the long-simmering rift between House GOP leaders and the conservative wing of the caucus.

As he has done all year, majority whip Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) will be hosting a series of “listening sessions” with members to prep them on the details of the supercommittee process and the various possible outcomes. Leadership aides insist that the sessions are not a preemptive effort to whip the upcoming vote, but rather to educate members about the supercommittee timeline, as well as the possible implications of the plans they might vote on.

GOP leadership aides tell National Review Online that while is it too early to predict what the supercommittee plan will look like, the leadership plans to emphasize to members the potential consequences of a failure to reach an agreement on meaningful deficit reduction.

For instance, if the supercommittee falls short of the $1.2 trillion target, the debt-ceiling agreement requires that the difference be made up automatically through a process known as sequestration, which would prohibit the U.S. Treasury from releasing funds already allocated to the various federal agencies. If the supercommittee deadlocks, or if Congress does not approve the committee’s recommendations, the entire $1.2 trillion amount will be sequestered.

This aspect of the August debt deal was, according to a senior GOP aide, “designed to be nasty enough to force action on both sides.” Republicans are particularly concerned about the disproportionate impact sequestration would have on the defense budget. About 42 percent ($454 billion over the next decade) of the $1.2 trillion in forced cuts would fall on defense discretionary spending, which would come on top of the $350 billion in cuts (over ten years) mandated in the August deal. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta warned that further cuts would be “completely unacceptable” and “do real damage to our security.” Rep. Buck McKeon (R., Calif.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, went so far as to say that he would prefer to raise taxes than see the cuts enacted.

GOP leaders are also keenly aware of the threat of another downgrade to the nation’s AAA credit rating if the supercommittee cannot agree on a suitable plan. In fact, the financial community has been fairly explicit in this regard. Fitch Ratings, one of the three major credit agencies (along with Moody’s and Standard and Poor’s, the latter of which already downgraded the United States to AA+), has said that a failure to produce a plan “would likely result in negative rating action.” On Monday, Merrill Lynch announced that if the supercommittee fails to produce a “credible long-run plan,” a second or third downgrade is to be expected. Republicans aides tell NRO they view another downgrade as all but inevitable if the supercommittee fails. “They’re coming fast and furious,” one says.

For his part, House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) has clearly stated his expectations for the supercommittee. In a September address to the Economic Club of Washington, D.C., the speaker reiterated his insistence that tax increases are unacceptable. “It’s a very simple equation,” he said. “Tax increases destroy jobs.” Spending cuts and entitlement reform, Boehner argued, were the only reasonable paths to meaningful deficit reduction. And when it comes to spending cuts, he said, budget gimmicks — such as counting the scheduled reduction in spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as “savings” — would not be tolerated. “Deficit reduction shouldn’t just be about quantity; it should be about quality,” he said. “A billion dollars in imaginary savings from war spending that was never going to happen is not the same as a billion dollars in savings that strengthens our entitlement programs.”

Republicans are concerned that Democratic members on the supercommittee may refuse to back a plan that does not raise taxes, and that they are pushing to include the war “savings” — about $1 trillion over the next decade — in order to artificially inflate the size of the plan.

When the eventual plan is released, Boehner could face some difficulty, as he has on some issues in the past, in convincing the more conservative members of the conference to sign on. Indeed, on nearly every major spending vote the House has taken — from the April spending deal to the August debt-ceiling package — a sizeable bloc of conservative members has consistently voted against the leadership on the grounds that the item in question did not go far enough to address the nation’s considerable debt problem. Last month, Boehner lost a contentious vote on a House spending resolution when 48 Republicans voted in opposition, despite pressure to support the bill.

Conservative opposition on this front has been fueled by influential outside advocacy groups such as Heritage Action for America, which has been unabashed in the strict standards it applies to members of Congress. The group’s most recent congressional scorecard, for example, gave House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) a middling 78 percent rating; House majority leader Rep. Eric Cantor (R., Va.) scored just 60 percent. The group has also announced a number of “key votes” against GOP leadership on major legislation.

Tim Chapman, chief operating officer for Heritage Action, tells NRO that the group is concerned that Republican leaders will attempt to sell a sub-par, gimmick-riddled, supercommittee package to members as a “must pass,” using fear over the defense sequestration to present the plan as the only feasible option. “There’s concern that the plan is to just cobble this thing together, hold your nose and vote for it and get it out of town,” Chapman says. “If that’s the way it goes, there is no way we can support it.”

He argues that Republicans need to “go big” and demand significant deficit reduction as way to sharpen the contrast between the two parties heading into the 2012 election. GOP leaders, he says, are too content to take the path of least resistance. “We’ve come to an understanding that there is a philosophical difference in how we should approach the problems that face the country,” says Chapman. “We believe strongly that the only way that you win an election that produces a mandate is to paint in bold colors, to create a referendum election. And you can’t do that if one side thinks we can win by just kneeling with the ball.”

While Heritage Action has proved to be an influential force throughout the year, a growing number of Republicans have expressed frustration with what they consider the group’s “hard-line” stance. A senior GOP aide tells NRO said the group should think twice before “playing Republican against Republican,” especially before the final details of the supercommittee’s plan are known.

Fortunately for Republican leaders, any plan from the supercommittee must have bipartisan support to pass, making it equally incumbent on Democrats to deliver votes. Assuming the committee can produce a plan, this ought to give Boehner some breathing room. Ratings agencies will not only be eyeing the size and quality of the deficit-reduction package that Congress comes up with, but also the political atmosphere surrounding it. Past spending negotiations haven’t exactly done much to inspire confidence. Both sides are hoping this time will be different.

— Andrew Stiles is the Franklin Center’s 2011 Thomas L. Rhodes Journalism Fellow.