House Republican Leaders May Push Compromise Budget Plan

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House GOP leaders may push a compromise budget plan. House Republican leaders are making a new push to pass a Fiscal 2017 budget blueprint designed to win support from the reluctant GOP conservative members.

The new plan will be shared with the GOP rank-and-file at a closed-door conference today. It would allow for discretionary spending that is $30 billion higher than what conservatives want. But it would be tied to cuts in entitlement programs that would save $30 billion over two years. No confirmed details have surfaced regarding the $30 billion entitlement spending cuts.

Potential strategy. The spending cuts and budget resolution language would be combined into a joint resolution. That would make the package a regular bill, and not, technically, a budget resolution. A budget resolution is a concurrent resolution, which is different from a bill in that it does not go to the president for his signature or become a law.

If House leaders garner enough votes for the plan, the new budget bill would go to the floor next week, ahead of any of the regular appropriations bills needed to fund the government for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1. However, it is unclear whether the plan will gain enough votes to advance.

In the Senate, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky) laid out a plan designed to complete work on the first of 12 annual spending bills by today. Approval of the $37.5 billion Energy-Water bill this week would mark the earliest Senate passage of a spending bill in modern budget history.

NOTE: This column is copyrighted material; therefore reproduction or retransmission is prohibited under U.S. copyright laws.