The House Budget Committee released their FY 2017 budget resolution Tuesday to win support from dissident conservatives through a combination of assumed cuts in mandatory spending programs and new budget rules.
The House Budget outlines the Congressional tax and spending framework, which does not go to the president and does not become a law. The purpose of the budget is to lay out a path for Congress to balance the budget in 10 years by cutting spending by $6.5 trillion. Combined with projected savings from (the controversial) dynamic scoring estimates of the impact of repealing Obamacare and overall deficit reduction, the budget would save $7 trillion over a decade, according to the House Budget Committee documents.
The budget stays with the FY 2017 discretionary spending caps from last year’s budget deal, which are $551 billion for defense and $518.5 billion for nondefense, it assumes defense spending will rise and nondefense spending will be reduced in relation to the statutory spending caps and inflation over the subsequent nine years.
Members of the Freedom Caucus already have dismissed the mandatory program cuts because there is no guarantee — in fact it is unlikely — they would get through the Senate and be signed by President Barack Obama. Also controversial is that the House budget uses the higher numbers from the recent budget agreement and not the lower, BCA/Sequester numbers agreed to several years ago.
But the proposed budget offers another avenue to potential support. Since it is not a law, a budget resolution can only assume that certain policies are enacted.
It will be marked up by the panel at Wednesday morning, despite continuing uncertainty over the plan’s fate on the House Floor given opposition by House Freedom Caucus conservatives who agreed Monday night to come out in opposition.
Read the budget proposal here.
See as summary of the budget here.
Charts and graphs outlining the budget are here.
A budget FAQ is here.