House Republicans start 2016 budgets, too early for Democrats

The House will take up 2016 spending bills this week even as Republican negotiators finalize a budget framework and the White House warns Republicans not to forge ahead without lifting mandatory spending caps the parties agreed to years ago.

The House will consider two bills approved by the Appropriations Committee — one to house, train and equip the military and fund veterans’ programs, and the other to safely guard the nation’s nuclear weapons and support the Army Corps of Engineers.

“This is actually the earliest in the history of Congress we have ever started appropriations,” said Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, California Republican.

Maybe too early, according to the administration and Democrats, who say the Republicans’ plans for the coming year slash research and safety net programs while using defense-spending gimmicks to get around 2011 sequestration limits that President Obama wants to erase.

They said the Republicans’ plans are unworkable and, absent bipartisan negotiations, will encounter roadblocks in the coming months.

Republican negotiators also haven’t released a final budget resolution — the nonbinding framework that sets limits for spending laws — though congressional aides say they are close to a deal.

The resolution, which melds the Republican House and Senate budgets, could be finished by Monday, with the spending bills hitting the floor midweek, the aides said.

Congress has struggled in recent years to complete the annual appropriations process, relying on short-term spending resolutions instead, so Republican leaders want to get a head start on the 12 spending bills that must wind through the committee process before hitting the floor.

“I think the intention is to restore the original order. At least at this moment, I sense great optimism that that will happen,” Rep. Tom McClintock, a California Republican who sits on the Budget Committee, said in an interview.

But Shaun Donovan, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, set down a marker last week, saying both of the bills approved in committee would “shortchange” vital programs without reopening debate around sequestration.

“Sequestration was never intended to take effect: rather, it was supposed to threaten such drastic cuts to both defense and non-defense funding that policymakers would be motivated to come to the table and reduce the deficit through smart, balanced reforms,” he wrote in letters to Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers, Kentucky Republican.

Mr. Rogers said the administration is reaching for $76 billion in extra domestic spending that will never come.

“According to the president’s budget request, these fabricated additional funds would come primarily through tax increases that are not, and will never become, current law,” committee spokeswoman Jennifer Hing said.

For his part, Speaker John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican, said his party will work through disagreements with the White House as they arise.

He did, however, leave the door open to a type of bipartisan deal that Rep. Paul Ryan, Wisconsin Republican, and Sen. Patty Murray, Washington Democrat, struck in late 2013 to avert a government shutdown and ease the sequester limits on defense and domestic programs.

“If there’s a way to reduce mandatory spending in a way that would provide relief to the sequester, like we did with the Ryan-Murray budget plan, have at it,” Mr. Boehner said.