Lawmaker prods Dems on bypassing panel with pay/go bill

House Budget ranking member Paul Ryan, R-Wis., called on House Democratic leaders on Tuesday to reconsider their decision to bypass the panel and take pay/go legislation straight to the House floor.

Ryan argued in a letter written on Monday that the move would "deny members the opportunity to participate in the drafting of this complex revision and extension ... that the Administration has proposed."

The pay/go bill, which has 165 cosponsors, would require that any new tax and mandatory spending legislation that adds to the deficit be offset. The letter comes after the bill was introduced last month and follows a call by President Obama for Congress quickly to restore pay/go spending constraints that some experts say led to budget surpluses in the late 1990s.

In his letter, Ryan also argued that bypassing the Budget Committee would be a departure from the panel's history of writing budget process legislation and "sets a troubling precedent for rushing through future budget process changes without the proper review by Congress."

In a jab at Democratic leaders' move to limit amendments on appropriations bills in order to get all 12 of them through the House before August, Ryan said the move on the pay/go bill continues "an increasing and disturbing trend of rushing legislation straight to the floor, increasing under limited rules for amendments."

The letter also comes as the Congressional Budget Office concluded that the pay/go bill could result in an increase to the deficit of $3 trillion over 10 years due to an exemption for four types of legislation from the law: middle class tax cuts, the estate tax, patching the alternative middle class tax, and providing higher Medicare payments to physicians.

Supporters of the pay/go bill have said the exemption is needed because Congress has typically failed to offset these items and it prevents weakening the pay/go bill as a result of having to waive it for these bills.

CBO, which analyzed the legislation at Ryan's request, also said that the pay/go bill would impact the balance between Congress and the executive branch in controlling the budget. For example, the Office of Management and Budget would prepare key budget estimates and determine the guidelines for preparing those estimates.

The issue is one reason why Senate Budget Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., has resisted supporting the idea statutory pay/go. However, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., has said he has met with Conrad on the matter and hopes to gain his support.