WASHINGTON — With late-night texts to his members and an open-door policy for his most hard-to-please colleagues, Paul Ryan was determined to keep the usual Republican infighting from derailing his maiden government spending deal as House speaker.
He made his chief of staff, David Hoppe, accessible to members of the arch-conservative Freedom Caucus for matters large and small, aides to Ryan and the group said. He kept them updated on negotiations, including wins and losses, and frequently asked for input. He’s resisted pressure to break a promise to wait three days before holding a vote on a $1.1 trillion spending and tax plan.
Ryan’s approach has so far paid off, earning him praise even from conservative lawmakers who don’t like the spending bill and have tried to grind bipartisan deal-making to a halt. Yet he has carefully lowered expectations for his party in 2016, cautioning that with a Democrat in the White House, few Republican policies can become law. The triangulation may inoculate him and his party from criticism should they achieve as little as he expects.
“It’s night and day,” said Rep. Mark Meadows, a founding member of the House Freedom Caucus who filed a motion to depose Ryan’s predecessor, John Boehner. “I think we’ve expressed a real desire to have an open dialogue, and Speaker Ryan has not only delivered but continues to make a commitment to deliver in the future. And it makes everyone swallow bad news a little bit easier.”
Ryan’s biggest accomplishment may have been effectively removing from the table the threat of a government shutdown as current funding ran out last week, in part by neutralizing conservatives who demanded to block Syrian refugees from entering the country and to cut off federal money for Planned Parenthood, the women’s health service. Not a bad first outing, observers inside and outside government say, but as for Ryan’s dream of comprehensive tax reform as early as next year?
“Absolutely not,” said Stan Collender, a budget expert. “This deal is not the start of a new era of cooperation between congressional Democrats and Republicans. It’s only a temporary truce because of common interests at this moment. The war will restart and intensify next year on all other issues.”
The spending and tax-break plan is no model of conservative legislation. It would add about $680 billion to the deficit over 10 years, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation, defying Ryan’s reputation as the party’s chief budget-cutter. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said President Barack Obama would sign the bill and described it as a Democratic victory over Republican prerogatives.
“We feel good about the outcome, primarily because we got a compromise budget agreement that fought off a wide variety of ideological riders but yet ensures the priorities that this administration has identified when it comes to investing in middle class families and protecting the country,” Earnest said Wednesday. “We succeeded.”
Republicans won an end to a 40-year-ban on crude oil exports but had to agree to extend tax credits for wind and solar power. Democrats locked in tax breaks for low-income families but couldn’t get automatic increases tied to inflation. The deal preserved both parties’ sacred cows, including the GOP’s red line of no new taxes and Democrats’ demands to boost domestic and military spending equally.
Ryan of Wisconsin may have had a freer hand to raise spending than his predecessor thanks to the falling federal deficit. The $1.2 trillion deficit that Obama inherited in 2009 has plummeted to $426 billion in 2015.
“This is a very old-fashioned, circa 1960s or 1970s, budget bill. It spends more, it taxes less, it increases the deficit,” Collender said. “This is a return to old politics in the sense that if you give everybody something they’re likely to support it, the deficit and debt be damned. It’s a big change for the Republican Party.”
Budget accord whizzes through House
WASHINGTON — Republicans overwhelmed divided Democrats to whisk tax breaks for businesses, families and special interests through the House on Thursday as Congress sped toward final votes on a year-crowning budget accord that will bankroll the government in 2016.
The tax measure was approved 318-109. The Senate aimed to approve the tax bill Friday.
Both chambers also planned Friday votes on the second leg of the budget compromise, a $1.1 trillion measure financing government, after which Congress was ready to adjourn until January.
