House GOP Members Want $20B Extra in Cuts
The Hill reports:
Conservative House Republicans are mounting what could be the most serious challenge to the GOP spending bill this week, offering an amendment that would slash federal funding by an additional $20 billion.
The amendment is sponsored by the chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee (RSC), Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), and would force the GOP rank and file to choose whether to back a more ambitious package of spending cuts than the measure endorsed by party leadership.
The spending bill that Republicans brought to the floor on Tuesday, a continuing resolution drafted by the House Appropriations Committee, would cut $61 billion from fiscal 2010 spending levels.
Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) had already bowed to demands from Tea Party-backed freshman Republicans to propose deeper cuts, but Jordan’s proposal would push the reductions even further.
His amendment is one of more than 400 submitted by lawmakers on Monday as members jumped at the chance for a rare open debate on a spending bill that GOP leaders have billed as their first chance to bring down the deficit.
Lawmakers were expected to file dozens if not hundreds of additional amendments before the deadline on Tuesday, and the House prepared for an around-the-clock debate in a bid to pass the 359-page bill by Thursday.
Republican leaders said the process was unprecedented and conceded the outcome was unclear. “I’m ready to expect whatever,” Boehner said on the House floor shortly before debate began.
Lawmakers were told that their amendments had to be filed in advance and be “germane” to the appropriations bill. The House clerk began reading the bill aloud around 3:30 p.m. on Tuesday, and members must offer their amendments when the section they want to change is read.
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