Posted on 03/24/2015 5:39:03 AM PDT by cotton1706
Republicans are breaking out their procedural rulebooks for the House budget resolution, with leadership getting creative to appease defense hawks who want additional spending and conservatives who are apt to reject more military dollars that arent offset.
The House Rules Committee Monday set up a series of votes this week on six budget proposals: The one reported out of committee, the version reported out of committee with an additional $2 billion for Overseas Contingency Operations, a leaner Republican Study Committee budget, a House Democratic Caucus budget, a proposal from the Progressive Caucus, and one from the Congressional Black Caucus.
The budget with the $2 billion additional defense dollars is the one House leadership ultimately wants to see adopted. That proposal will be the final vote in the series.
Heres how the process works: the budget that gets the most votes is the one that wins. In congressional parlance, its called Queen of the Hill.
GOP leaders had to get funky with the rule after the Budget Committee reported out a bill without the additional $2 billion that Republican members of the House Armed Services Committee said was critical to their support. It seemed like the Rules Committee would just include self-executing language making a bill with the amendment to the base text but conservatives balked. They threatened to vote down any rule that simply added money without an offset for that expense and without a real vote.
Now that Republicans have found a way to thread the needle, allowing votes on the alternatives, conservatives may be more willing to see the budget even if it is one with more defense spending across the finish line.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.rollcall.com ...
Also, don’t forget that Boehner booted those that voted against him OFF the rules committee.
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