Keith Hennessey at the Hoover Institution asks Republicans and conservatives regarding the budget fight: “Is the goal to fight or to cut spending?”
Following the defection of 54 Republicans on a vote for a three-week continuing resolution (and $6 billion in spending cuts), Hennessey offered “a different strategy for impatient fiscal conservatives,” in which he argued that drawing a line in the sand by threatening to vote against any further short-term spending bills — a move that could lead to a government shutdown — was “a short-sighted and even counterproductive tactical blunder.”
“Legislating is a team sport,” he wrote. “You win when you can build a coalition to achieve your goals. Right now, the spending cut team is winning.”
“Instead of threatening to oppose the next CR no matter what, impatient fiscal conservatives should demand that their party leaders ratchet up the the spending cuts in the next CR.”
In his latest post, Hennessey presents a detailed proposal for how the GOP can do just that. Until an acceptable long-term solution is negotiated — if that’s even possible at this point — he recommends that House Republicans continue to pass three-week continuing resolutions that cut spending in ever-increasing increments — starting with a baseline rate of $2 billion per week in the first week and increasing by the “absurdly small” amount of $100 million each week after that.
[A]s April 8th approaches House Republicans would pass another three week CR, one which cuts $2.1 B in its first week, $2.2 B in its second week, and $2.3 B in its third week. If another CR was needed after that, it would begin with $2.4 B of savings, and so on until the end of the fiscal year.
Such a tiny weekly increment would be nearly impossible for Democrats to reject. And yet if continued through the end of this fiscal year, $4.5 B of discretionary spending would be cut in the final week, that of September 23rd.
This strategy would result in an additional $82.5 B of spending cuts between April 8th and September 30th, and it poses zero additional risk for Congressional Republicans. They would maintain the high ground on spending cuts and remain on the offensive for the next six months.
That would be considerably higher than the $61 billion included in the House Republicans’ own spending bill, H.R. 1. And if they were to double the rate of increase to $200 million per week, that would result in $115 billion over the same period, nearly double H.R. 1. The plan, he says, carries “near-zero risk.”
“For some conservatives it’s about having a public fight,” Hennessey writes. “For me it’s about the money.”
Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, it looks like both sides are gearing up for a fight.