Laying down the conservative marker on two important budget issues, 25 members of the Conservative Action Team last week wrote to House Budget Committee Chairman John Kasich, R-Ohio, to express their "strong support" for changing budget rules to allow tax cuts to be paid for with discretionary spending cuts-and to "encourage you in your effort to include an automatic continuing resolution in the committee's budget resolution."
Current "pay-as-you-go" budget rules require tax cuts to be offset by equivalent cuts in entitlement spending or tax increases-prohibiting Congress from using cuts in annual appropriations to pay for tax cuts.
Five GOP members of the Budget Committee signed on to the letter: Reps. Wally Herger of California, Van Hilleary of Tennessee, John Sununu of New Hampshire, Joseph Pitts of Pennsylvania and Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.
But they are not alone on the panel in their views. A spokesman for Rep. Jim Nussle, R-Iowa, a senior Budget member, said Nussle "in general supports those two ideas." The aide said Nussle "is very excited about the fact that more members are being heard from on the need to change budget rules. It's just another reason to be optimistic" about the prospects of the bipartisan budget process reform bill that Nussle and Rep. Benjamin Cardin, D-Md., wrote during the last Congress.
Nussle and Cardin plan to reintroduce their bill, which would establish an automatic CR and change pay-go rules to permit any portion of an on-budget surplus-excluding Social Security-to finance tax cuts. And Nussle expects the panel will take up the bill sometime after it finishes the budget resolution, which Kasich hopes will be next month. Adding a boost to their bill is the cosponsorship of House Rules Legislative and Budget Process Subcommittee Chairman Porter Goss, R-Fla.
Thomas Kahn, staff director to Budget Committee Democrats, said, "What the CATs are saying is, 'We want to spend the surplus being reserved for Social Security and Medicare for tax cuts.' Social Security and Medicare are so important to so many millions of Americans that we need to ensure their long-term security. To weaken the pay-go rules that brought us to a surplus in the first place for tax cuts that generally would benefit Americans in the top-income bracket is short-sighted."
As for the automatic CR idea, Kahn said, "It's essentially saying that we should have an [automatic] CR because Congress can't do its job and pass appropriations bills on time."
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