J
uly 31 was a fateful day: It was when House Republicans proved even they couldn’t govern under the sequester spending levels — and the day the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee finally had enough.
“The House has made its choice: sequestration — and its unrealistic and ill-conceived discretionary cuts — must be brought to an end,” Rep. Harold Rogers of Kentucky said after leadership was forced to pull the Transportation-HUD funding bill from the floor.
Rogers may have spoken first, but he is hardly alone in his frustration.
In the months between the bill’s canceled floor consideration and the resolution of the government shutdown, veteran GOP appropriators have grown increasingly vocal in their dissatisfaction.
“I’m a process guy, I believe in the process … and it goes for naught,” said appropriator Steve Womack of Arkansas. “We end up with continuing resolutions, and a lot of things we’ve done in our appropriations work is pushed aside.”
Appropriators pass bills with bipartisan cooperation through the committee and then watch them flounder on the House floor, where spending levels mandated by the sequester and the House-passed budget resolution are too deep for Democrats and some Republicans and not deep enough for others.
They watch their Republican peers vote for amendments to appropriations bills on the House floor that appeal to the far-right contingent of the party and then vote against final passage.
What’s more, Republicans on the Appropriations Committee feel the odds are stacked against them, with nothing likely to improve until their leaders agree to make some changes.
From their standpoint, and the standpoint of GOP aides familiar with the process, the chief reason appropriations bills can’t pass the House now is because of an unworkable topline number.
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