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| House Passes Money Bill and Budget Blueprint | House Passes Money Bill and Budget Blueprint |
| (about 17 hours later) | |
| WASHINGTON — The House gave final approval on Thursday to legislation to keep government financed through September, and it also passed a Republican blueprint that enshrined the party’s vision of a balanced budget that would substantially shrink spending, privatize Medicare and rewrite the tax code to make it simpler. | WASHINGTON — The House gave final approval on Thursday to legislation to keep government financed through September, and it also passed a Republican blueprint that enshrined the party’s vision of a balanced budget that would substantially shrink spending, privatize Medicare and rewrite the tax code to make it simpler. |
| With a final flurry, Republican leaders sent the House home for a two-week recess, confident that they had outmaneuvered President Obama and the Democrats in the running fiscal fight from the last redoubt of Republican control in Washington. In the Senate, Republicans put Democrats on notice that passage of the Senate’s first budget since 2009 would come at a political price. | With a final flurry, Republican leaders sent the House home for a two-week recess, confident that they had outmaneuvered President Obama and the Democrats in the running fiscal fight from the last redoubt of Republican control in Washington. In the Senate, Republicans put Democrats on notice that passage of the Senate’s first budget since 2009 would come at a political price. |
| Democrats had to vote down an amendment, 46-53, on Thursday night that instructed them to rewrite their budget to balance it, something it never does. But in a nonbinding provision, the Senate voted overwhelmingly, 79-20, to repeal a 2.3 percent tax on medical devices that helps finance the president’s health care overhaul, the first step in what Republicans see as a chipping away of the law. | Democrats had to vote down an amendment, 46-53, on Thursday night that instructed them to rewrite their budget to balance it, something it never does. But in a nonbinding provision, the Senate voted overwhelmingly, 79-20, to repeal a 2.3 percent tax on medical devices that helps finance the president’s health care overhaul, the first step in what Republicans see as a chipping away of the law. |
| In a marathon session scheduled for Friday, Senate Democrats expect to vote on nonbinding amendments that are tailor-made for the 2014 campaign: to uphold gun rights being challenged in the United Nations; to make the president and vice president buy insurance through the new Affordable Care Act; and to withhold the president’s salary until he submits a budget, as legally required, among dozens of other proposals. | In a marathon session scheduled for Friday, Senate Democrats expect to vote on nonbinding amendments that are tailor-made for the 2014 campaign: to uphold gun rights being challenged in the United Nations; to make the president and vice president buy insurance through the new Affordable Care Act; and to withhold the president’s salary until he submits a budget, as legally required, among dozens of other proposals. |
| Speaker John A. Boehnersaid he was looking toward the next showdown this summer, when the government’s borrowing limit must be raised, to extract more concessions. “Dollar for dollar is the plan,” Mr. Boehner said, reviving a rule, breached in January, that holds that any increase in the debt ceiling must be matched by spending cuts. | |
| The financing plan for the rest of the fiscal year, which passed the House, 318 to 109, will prevent the government from shutting down next Wednesday, when the current stopgap spending law expires. But it locks in across-the-board cuts that will usher in the most austere spending limits in decades. It also underfinances important elements of the president’s health care law as the administration builds purchasing exchanges for health insurance. And it makes permanent four temporary gun rights provisions, just as Senate Democrats prepare a final push on gun control legislation when they return from an Easter holiday recess. | The financing plan for the rest of the fiscal year, which passed the House, 318 to 109, will prevent the government from shutting down next Wednesday, when the current stopgap spending law expires. But it locks in across-the-board cuts that will usher in the most austere spending limits in decades. It also underfinances important elements of the president’s health care law as the administration builds purchasing exchanges for health insurance. And it makes permanent four temporary gun rights provisions, just as Senate Democrats prepare a final push on gun control legislation when they return from an Easter holiday recess. |
| The House budget — the third drafted by Representative Paul D. Ryanof Wisconsin — affirms a blueprint that the president campaigned against. | |
| It would convert Medicare into a system of private insurance plans financed by federal vouchers and roll back many of Mr. Obama’s signature accomplishments. It would repeal the health care overhaul of 2009, eliminating the subsidized insurance exchanges and the Medicaid expansion that make up the core of the law. It would also undo the Wall Street regulatory law passed after the 2008 financial crisis and cut spending by $4.6 trillion through 2023, the year the plan purports to bring the budget into balance. It passed 221 to 207, with all Democrats and 10 Republicans voting no. | It would convert Medicare into a system of private insurance plans financed by federal vouchers and roll back many of Mr. Obama’s signature accomplishments. It would repeal the health care overhaul of 2009, eliminating the subsidized insurance exchanges and the Medicaid expansion that make up the core of the law. It would also undo the Wall Street regulatory law passed after the 2008 financial crisis and cut spending by $4.6 trillion through 2023, the year the plan purports to bring the budget into balance. It passed 221 to 207, with all Democrats and 10 Republicans voting no. |
| Late Thursday, the Senate rejected the Ryan plan, 40-59, just as the House had rejected the Senate plan on Wednesday, signaling the difficulty facing the two chambers in reconciling their differences. | Late Thursday, the Senate rejected the Ryan plan, 40-59, just as the House had rejected the Senate plan on Wednesday, signaling the difficulty facing the two chambers in reconciling their differences. |
| Mr. Ryan’s budget rests on significant assumptions. To make spending align with revenues, the money raised from taxes would have to stay at current levels, even as it repeals the tax increases in the president’s health care law and eliminates the alternative minimum tax. The plan directs the House Ways and Means Committee to overhaul the tax code, leaving only two individual brackets, 25 percent and 10 percent, as well as a 25 percent corporate tax rate, down from 35 percent. | Mr. Ryan’s budget rests on significant assumptions. To make spending align with revenues, the money raised from taxes would have to stay at current levels, even as it repeals the tax increases in the president’s health care law and eliminates the alternative minimum tax. The plan directs the House Ways and Means Committee to overhaul the tax code, leaving only two individual brackets, 25 percent and 10 percent, as well as a 25 percent corporate tax rate, down from 35 percent. |
| But the budget does not detail the tax deductions, credits and loopholes that would need to be eliminated or cut back to finance such deep rate cuts, effectively leaving tax writers a $6 trillion hole to fill — a task that Democrats say is mathematically impossible without raising the tax burden on the middle class. | But the budget does not detail the tax deductions, credits and loopholes that would need to be eliminated or cut back to finance such deep rate cuts, effectively leaving tax writers a $6 trillion hole to fill — a task that Democrats say is mathematically impossible without raising the tax burden on the middle class. |
| As a political document, the budget makes an uncompromising statement after the Republicans’ losses in November. Mr. Ryan said his budget and the Democratic version that is likely to pass by Saturday “clarifies the divide between us.” | As a political document, the budget makes an uncompromising statement after the Republicans’ losses in November. Mr. Ryan said his budget and the Democratic version that is likely to pass by Saturday “clarifies the divide between us.” |
| “We want to balance the budget. They don’t,” he said on Thursday. “We want to restrain spending. They want to spend more.” | “We want to balance the budget. They don’t,” he said on Thursday. “We want to restrain spending. They want to spend more.” |
| Representative Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, the ranking Democrat on the House Budget Committee, responded: “We’ve just been through a major national campaign where both candidates, Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, agreed on one thing — the people of this country faced a fundamental choice in the direction we were going to take. The American people voted, and they resoundingly rejected the direction this budget has taken for the third year in a row.” | Representative Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, the ranking Democrat on the House Budget Committee, responded: “We’ve just been through a major national campaign where both candidates, Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, agreed on one thing — the people of this country faced a fundamental choice in the direction we were going to take. The American people voted, and they resoundingly rejected the direction this budget has taken for the third year in a row.” |
| Still, the passage of the spending bill and the House budget could begin a process toward a bipartisan deficit reduction deal. Once the Senate blueprint is passed, lawmakers will return in April and try to resolve the vastly different visions of taxing and spending. | Still, the passage of the spending bill and the House budget could begin a process toward a bipartisan deficit reduction deal. Once the Senate blueprint is passed, lawmakers will return in April and try to resolve the vastly different visions of taxing and spending. |
| The speaker himself suggested agreement might be impossible. “The president has been clear that he’s not going to address our entitlement crisis unless we’re willing to raise taxes,” Mr. Boehner said. “I think the tax issue has been resolved. So at this point, I don’t know how we’re going to go forward.” | The speaker himself suggested agreement might be impossible. “The president has been clear that he’s not going to address our entitlement crisis unless we’re willing to raise taxes,” Mr. Boehner said. “I think the tax issue has been resolved. So at this point, I don’t know how we’re going to go forward.” |
| Some rank-and-file Republicans have suggested that the House raise the debt ceiling only in exchange for significant changes to entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security. | Some rank-and-file Republicans have suggested that the House raise the debt ceiling only in exchange for significant changes to entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security. |
| RepresentativeNancy Pelosi, the House minority leader, said that would never happen: “Them’s fighting words.” | |
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction: | This article has been revised to reflect the following correction: |
| Correction: March 21, 2013 | Correction: March 21, 2013 |
An earlier version of this article misidentified the current top corporate tax rate. It is 35 percent, not 25 percent. | An earlier version of this article misidentified the current top corporate tax rate. It is 35 percent, not 25 percent. |