House Republican leaders were forced yesterday to abruptly pull their $54 billion budget-cutting bill off the House floor, amid growing dissension in Republican ranks over spending priorities, taxes, oil exploration and the reach of government.
A battle between House Republican conservatives and moderates over energy policy and federal anti-poverty and education programs left GOP leaders without enough votes to pass a budget measure they had framed as one of the most important pieces of legislation in years. Across the Capitol, a moderate GOP revolt in the Senate Finance Committee forced Republicans to postpone action on a bill to extend some of President Bush's most contentious tax cuts.
The twin setbacks added to growing signs that the Republican Party's typically lock-step discipline is cracking under the weight of Bush's plummeting approval ratings, Tuesday's electoral defeats and the growing discontent of the American electorate. After five years of remarkable unity under Bush's gaze, divisions between Republican moderates and conservatives are threatening to paralyze the party.
"The fractures were always there. The difference was the White House was always able to hold them in line because of perceived power," said Tony Fabrizio, a Republican pollster. "After Tuesday's election, it's, 'Why are we following these guys? They're taking us off the cliff.'"
Acting House Majority Leader Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) did not dispute that.
"One of the challenges of any second-term administration is you always lose a certain amount of identification with the Congress because everybody in the Congress in the first term knows you'll be out there in the next campaign with them," Blunt said in an interview yesterday. "Your motives are always a little more suspect when you don't have to face the voters again."
This is an outright revolt within the ranks of the Republican Party between the moderate Republicans and the wingnuts. For five years, the Bush White House and Karl Rove have been able to enforce discipline and dissent from the party as they pushed their extremist right-wing agenda. They refused to compromise. But now with the president's poll numbers dropping, and the Republican losses in the special election, the moderates are realizing they need to break ranks from the extremist wing of the party, or face the possibility of losing their seats in next year's election. Consider this in the Post:
The House budget vote was supposed to reestablish the Republican commitment to a smaller government that would change the federal approach to Medicaid, food stamps, agriculture subsidies, student loans and a host of other programs.
But moderate Republicans made it clear that was not the way they wanted the party defined. The GOP leadership had already abandoned a provision in the budget that would have opened the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling, a policy goal Bush has embraced since he came to office. But it was not enough to secure the votes of moderates who said remaining policy changes were hitting the nation's most vulnerable citizens just as the party was preparing another round of tax cuts that would benefit the most affluent.
"I've told the leadership they're asking for the dismantling of the Republican conference" with this budget, said Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (R-N.Y.), a leading moderate. "The clear evidence from Tuesday's election results is that Americans are moderate. They need to start listening to us."
Of course, the big question is, are the Congressional leaders in the House listening to the moderates? Consider this in the Post:
For their part, House conservatives said the leadership had erred in accommodating the left-leaning wing of the party on oil drilling, since it undermined support for the bill among staunch GOP loyalists.
"The question for the House leadership is how far do you go in order to get the liberal Republican vote. Obviously they pushed it too far," said House Resources Committee Chairman Richard W. Pombo (R-Calif.), who estimated that he and more than 25 other Republicans considered rejecting the budget once the leadership removed provisions to expand oil drilling in the Arctic and offshore coasts. "When they pulled it out [moderates] still didn't support it. And a bunch of guys elsewhere in the country said, 'Wait a minute. What happened to the energy?"
House leaders said they could not corral enough votes before rank-and-file members needed to dash home for Veterans Day events. They vowed to try to pass the budget next week, but lawmakers conceded it will not get any easier.
You can bet that the House leaders are going to continue pushing the moderates to vote their way. And the moderates will also be under White House pressure. The issue for moderates now is, which is the greater anger? Will it be the anger of House leaders and the Bush White House?
Or will it be the anger of the voters next year?
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