Last week the budget struggles continued at least in the House of Representatives where they’ve decided to delay any markup on the budget resolution in the budget committee. There were indications and public comments by the Chairman of the Budget Committee, Congressman Tom Price that they had reached an agreement with more conservative elements of the party but by week’s end that seemed in question.
Under the leadership proposal, they will stick to the budget caps that were part of last December’s deal between Congressional Republicans and the President and they will address the needs of the more conservative members by passing a reconciliation instruction that would allow them to cut entitlements and mandatory spending.
The committee had hoped to originally mark-up a budget resolution this week and deal with it on the floor sometime in March now that is been delayed until committee action at some point in early March. Despite the optimism a core group of conservatives still want to reject last year’s budget agreement.
Even if they can get such a deal through the House of Representatives it is questionable whether or not a reconciliation that would target entitlements they can get Senators on board. Such a reconciliation debate coming in the middle of an election year could put some members in uncomfortable positions and force them to take controversial votes.
