Congress Passes Budget Bill, but Some in G.O.P.

Balk
House Speaker John A. Boehner on Thursday.
By JENNIFER STEINHAUER and CARL HULSE
Published: April 14, 2011
WASHINGTON — The House on Thursday passed compromise legislation to finance the federal
government through the end of the fiscal year in September. The vote brought one budget clash to a close
even as the Democrats and Republicans prepared for another.

The vote was 260 to 167, with 59 Republicans breaking ranks with their party leadership to vote against
the deal, which calls for $38 billion in spending cuts this year. The Republican defections, a result of
opposition from conservatives who said the bill did not do enough to rein in spending, forced the House
speaker, John A. Boehner of Ohio, to turn to Democrats to pass the bill and keep the government from
shutting down.

Afterward, the bill moved to the Senate, where it was expected to pass quickly and be sent to President
Obama’s desk.

After the budget vote, the House moved onto votes on two measures — one to deny federal funds to
Planned Parenthood and another to roll back the 2010 health care overhaul. Both were expected to pass
overwhelmingly in the House, but fail in the Senate.

Early in the debate over the budget bill, Mr. Boehner took to the House floor to defend it and encourage its
passage. “Is it perfect? No,” he said. “I’d be the first to admit it’s flawed. But welcome to divided
government.”

Democratic leaders were equally unenthusiastic.

“The priorities that we have agreed to in this resolution are not my priorities,” said Representative Steny H.
Hoyer of Maryland, the whip for the Democrats. “But we have reached an agreement.”

The measure, the product of negotiations among the White House, House Republicans and Senate
Democrats to end a standoff that nearly led to a government shutdown last week, presaged the larger
battles still ahead.

Next up in the House is the blueprint for a budget for the next fiscal year and beyond, the opening stage in
a battle that will involve huge entitlement programs like Medicare and Medicaid and will be tied up in the
politically and economically explosive question of whether to approve an increase in the federal debt
ceiling.

As the debate wound down Thursday, Representative Harold Rogers, Republican of Kentucky, said, “I just
want this bill over with.”

Before the vote, Mr. Boehner pushed back against criticism that the agreement he struck with President
Obama and Senate Democrats relied too heavily on budget gimmicks.

“These are real cuts,” Mr. Boehner said, adding that those who thought that some of the reductions were
illusory because the money would not have ultimately been spent were “kidding themselves.”

As the House vote approached, the chief political question for Mr. Boehner was exactly how many
members of the Republican majority would end up rejecting the compromise he had negotiated, and
whether the number would be large enough to be an embarrassment for the new speaker.

The loss of 59 Republicans was not enough to torpedo the bill, but it was enough to put Mr. Boehner and
his team on notice that fiscal conservatives would be in no mood to accept substantial compromises on
coming budget votes. The Republican leadership had hoped to avoid depending on Democratic votes to
pass the bill because party fissures could weaken Mr. Boehner in coming budget negotiations. But in the
end, the bill would have failed without them. Eighty-one Democrats backed the bill, while 108 voted against
it.

Among freshman Republicans, many of whom won office last November on promises to rein in spending,
60 voted in favor while 27 said no. Mr. Boehner and his allies have been working over the past few days to
contain conservative criticism that the spending legislation was inadequate, falling well below initial
Republican aspirations for $61 billion.
“We have to make a bigger dent faster,” said Representative Jason Chaffetz, Republican of Utah.

Tim Pawlenty, the former Minnesota governor who is seen as a likely Republican presidential candidate,
added fuel to the discord. “The more we learn about the budget deal,” Mr. Pawlenty said, “the worse it
looks.”

But Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the No. 3 House Republican, said: “We have cut
spending. We know this is a long road up to that shiny city on the hill, and we just believe we’ve just got to
one more peak. And we’ll continue to fight.”

The resistance to the spending measure came after reviews of the proposal found that many of its
significant cuts, including some involving health care, would not reduce federal spending now because the
money in question was not likely to be spent for years, though budget rules allow the cuts to be counted as
a current reduction.

According to a Congressional Budget Office report, the bill would produce only $350 million in tangible
savings this year, in part because cuts in domestic programs were offset by an increase of about $5 billion
for Pentagon programs.

When projected emergency contingency spending overseas is figured in by the budget office, estimated
outlays for this year will actually increase by more than $3 billion.