House and Senate Budgets are as different as black and white, north and south, east and... well, you get the idea

Well folks, it’s that time again! Just this week, Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI), chairman of the House Budget Committee, published his budget plan for the coming year. In the Senate, Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) released the Senate Budget Committee version and, guess what, they look absolutely nothing alike, account for vastly different levels of federal spending over the next 10 years, and we’re not sure the kinks can be worked out. Meanwhile, both the House and Senate spent the past two weeks working on continuing resolutions just to keep the federal government from shutting down at the end of this month. 

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While initially some in the GOP sought to use the continuing funding resolution as a means of stopping funding for further health reform implementation, that idea failed when the GOP leadership failed to get behind it. In the House, the continuing resolution introduced and passed last week included PPACA funding. The bill eventually passed the House by a margin of 267-151, with only 14 principled Republicans voting against funding a measure that included health reform implementation funds. Speaker John Boehner even publically stated that while “We have voted many times within the last two years that we’ve been in the majority to defund ObamaCare, to repeal ObamaCare, and we will do so again here in the House in the coming months…Our goal here is to cut spending. It’s not to shut down the government. I believe that trying to put ObamaCare on this vehicle risked shutting down the government. That’s not what our goal is. Our goal is to reduce spending.”

On Wednesday, Senate Republicans tried to push through a continuing resolution that would defund PPACA, but their efforts were unsuccessful. The Senate is scheduled to vote on its version of a resolution this coming Monday, and the two measures need to be reconciled by March 27. The seemingly good news is that President Obama, Speaker Boehner and Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) all appear determined and optimistic that a resolution will be agreed upon in plenty of time to keep the federal government open and operational for the time being.  

As for long-term budget proposals, the Ryan plan sets a goal of balancing America’s budget by 2023. It also projects savings of $4.63 trillion over 10 years, yielding a surplus of $7 billion by fiscal 2023. While this may all sound good, at what cost does this come? The proposed budget, which looks strikingly similar to his past efforts to defund PPACA, decreases funding to Medicaid, gives the Medicare program a serious facelift and eliminates the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) and health law revenues like the tax on medical devices or health insurance. In terms of Medicare, Ryan has once again proposed turning Medicare into a voucher system and Medicaid into a block-grant program. 

The proposal also doesn’t change the projected tax revenue, which created a hole of $6.7 trillion in the federal budget. How is this possible? By eliminating some of the Tax Code’s largest and, arguably, most popular tax breaks. It does, however, maintain Obama’s $716 billion in cuts to Medicare providers and the $624 billion in tax increases from the January  2 fiscal cliff deal, both of which, if you remember from the fiscal cliff fiasco, were largely contested by Republicans. It’s safe to say that this budget, which has already been written off by the White House, will be dead on arrival in the Senate. 

Meanwhile, Senate Budget Committee Chair Patty Murray (D-WA) introduced the Senate Budget earlier this week. It  includes “$100 billion in stimulus spending on infrastructure projects, $975 billion in new tax revenue through cutting expenditures, $493 billion in domestic cuts (including $275 billion in health cuts) and $240 billion in defense cuts (all numbers over 10 years). Together with the $242 billion that it saves in interest payments, it adds up to a $1.85 trillion package, split evenly between taxes and spending cuts” wrote The Washington Post. The Senate budget is not likely to win GOP support on the floor and Senate Democrats from Republican states who will soon face re-election, such as Senators Mark Pryor (AR), Mark Begich (AK) and Kay Hagen (NC), have promised to review the budget before they cast their votes. Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT), who is also up for reelection in 2014, has remained quiet since the budget was released. The Senate budget will not balance the budget, like the propose House budget would, but the administration has already made clear that balancing the budget is not its top priority. 

Source: NAHU Washington Update