Conservative activists determined to keep federal spending as low as possible are not happy about the emerging deal between House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Senate Budget Committee Chairman Patty Murray (D-WA).
The deal, according to reports, would raise federal discretionary spending from a scheduled $967 billion in 2014, to as much as $1.015 trillion. In exchange for raising spending today, Democrats would promise to cut spending years from now.
Heritage Action for America Communications Director Dan Holler comments:
Heritage Action cannot support a budget deal that would increase spending in the near-term for promises of woefully inadequate long-term reductions. While imperfect, the sequester has proven to be an effective tool in forcing Congress to reduce discretionary spending, and a gimmicky, spend-now-cut-later deal will take our nation in the wrong direction.”
Scholars at the libertarian Cato Institute are not happy about the deal either. "If Republican leaders up-end the budget caps this year," Cato Director of Tax Policy Studies Chris Edwards writes, "they will empower big-spending Democrats, liberal Republicans, and appropriators to completely blow up the caps in later years."
The House of Representatives is scheduled to adjourn for the rest of the year this Friday. Perhaps the best conservatives can hope for is that Ryan runs out the clock, and the House adjures with no budget deal.
If that happened, the House would still need to pass another continuing resolution before January 15, when the deal struck to open the federal government in October, expires.