http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/03/20/1372157/-Boehner-going-big-on-two-big-ticket-items-what-could-go-wrong?detail=email
It seems Speaker John Boehner has finally suffered enough body blows from his caucus that he's playing with nothing to lose. Jake Sherman and John Bresnahan report that Boehner is going big on the House budget and also working to pass a permanent solution to the annual Medicare reimbursement shortfall that forces Congress to pass the so-called "doc fix" every year. He and his top lieutenants plan to "jam" them both through the House.
First, to get a budget approved, the Republican leaders intend to employ a parliamentary maneuver to boost defense spending by $20 billion without any corresponding spending cuts. They’re betting the move will help break a stalemate between fiscal hardliners and defense hawks.
Within days of that, the GOP leaders will try to pass a permanent fix to the “Sustainable Growth Rate,” a formula by which the federal government reimburses doctors who serve Medicare patients.
Boehner has been working with Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on the doc fix because he'll need Democratic votes to pass it.
And he's outsourced the budget battle to GOP Majority Leader, Kevin McCarthy (CA-23), who will pretty much need to scrape together the 217 votes from the GOP caucus alone since few Democrats will support the budget. Naturally, conserva-groups are already moaning and groaning about increased spending.
Outside conservative groups including Heritage Action are already agitating against the Medicare reimbursement deal, claiming it will increase the deficit by $400 billion over the next two decades, far more than Boehner is asserting.
And fiscal conservatives are fuming about busting spending caps put into law four years ago to preclude these kinds of maneuvers.
Nice to see Republicans stumbling over a trap they set four years ago when they took over the majority. That's got fiscal hawks pretty upset. They want the increased defense spending and the doc fix to be offset by cuts elsewhere.
“It’s a $3.8 trillion budget,” said Rep. Tom McClintock, a California conservative who serves on the Budget Committee. “We ought to be able to find $20 billion to cut somewhere.”
i only see the medicare fix as the peoples work but our flicked gov't is being influenced by outside right wing groups who pay for candidates see things their way. it's always about the money and what Pres. spends which is a falsehood they sign the checks not Pres. they never seem to make any noise when the millions of taxpayer monies are to further the party's political agenda such as proving the scandals they made up were real because they created them making them a real republican fabrication.
i also see the one the constantly put down Speaker Pelosi is now the only hope they have of passing anything through the truly fractured stability and sorely missing solidarity of the republican structure termites????
