CQ TODAY ONLINE NEWS
– POLITICS
March 31, 2009 – 6:48 p.m.
McCain Battles Party Leaders on Budget Plan
By Jonathan Allen, CQ Staff
Republican leaders in the Senate are clashing with John McCain , their party’s 2008 presidential nominee. He wants to offer an alternative to the Democratic budget and they don’t.
The behind-the-scenes battle is part of a larger split in the Republican Party.
Some in the GOP believe their best strategy is to resist President Obama’s agenda and take carefully chosen shots through amendments they all agree on; others want the party to do more to demonstrate how a Republican imprint would be different.
As Congress works on setting broad budget caps for fiscal 2010, McCain appears to be in the minority among Republicans, most of whom seem unwilling to stand behind a full-size alternative to the Democrats’ budget (
By making that choice, the GOP risks being cast as the party that can only say what it doesn’t want and not what it would do, if given the chance.
Building a better budget is hard, President Obama said during last week’s news conference, and, “That’s why the critics tend to criticize, but they don’t offer an alternative budget.”
Republicans who support offering their own budget say the GOP missed opportunities to define its priorities on the stimulus (PL 111-5), the catchall appropriations law (PL 111-8) and the Troubled Asset Relief Program (PL 110-343).
“We continue to be deemed the party of no,” McCain spokeswoman Brooke Buchanan said. The McCain plan “at least provides an alternative and outlines the issues that are important to the Republican Party.”
That’s Their Job
During Obama’s first two years in the Senate, when Republicans were in power, Senate Democrats did not offer alternatives to President Bush’s budgets.
“Historically the way this has happened is the party in the minority has not offered a budget. Traditionally. the party in the minority has offered a series of amendments to try to improve the majority’s budget. and that’s the tack we have taken this year,” Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, the top Budget Committee Republican, said on the Senate floor Tuesday. “That seems like a more logical tack to me because it is a more bipartisan approach.”
“They won the election, so they get to draft the budget,” agreed Sen. Jon Kyl , the Republican whip and McCain’s colleague in the Arizona delegation.
That view appears to have majority support, a dynamic demonstrated to McCain at a private lunch Tuesday. Afterwards, McCain was still not sure whether he would try to offer a full-sized alternative.
“The situation continues to be fluid,” his spokeswoman said.
No matter what McCain does, there will be risks for members of his party who will stand for re-election in 2010.
A full budget blueprint would necessitate tough choices on government spending and public taxation — and any painful cut can easily be turned into a campaign attack ad.
Buchanan said McCain’s alternative would focus on spending cuts, but she declined to make available a copy of the plan or specify any of its spending, tax or deficit targets.
If McCain is going to buck the wishes of his caucus, Senate procedures make that kind of gambit more effective on a budget resolution than on almost any other kind of vote that will happen this year.
On regular bills, the Democrats, as majority party, have the power to make sure no Republican amendments are brought up for a vote. The budget resolution is an exception. For that, the rules give the minority party much more freedom.
If McCain does not offer his alternative, another Republican in the Senate could submit that plan or possibly crib one being written by Wisconsin Rep. Paul D. Ryan , the top Republican on the House Budget Committee.
David Clarke contributed to this story.
Comments
As a conservative who is registered Republican, I am no fan of John McCain. However, on this point he is correct. Republicans have a very bad image problem and just saying "No" to Democrat proposals is not enough. To persuade the voters that what the Democrats want to do won't work, Republicans must offer viable alternatives (including a budget) to show there is something better.
Repubs. MUST post an alternative budget. Most Americans are unaware of the specifics of the Obama budget either because it is not covered / questioned by the propaganda machine that is the "mainstream" press, or the Admin. is just mum on REAL details. The Republican party must stake out its positions now for max lead time going into the 2010 congressional elections.
Whether there is something better remains a bone of contention, as it's been proven time and time again that tax cuts on the wealthy only spur deficits and lube up the machine for a recession (just look at the historical data from the Office on Budgets). But I agree that at this time we need more ideas and compromise while still keeping an eye on the ball of improved education and health care to rebuild our nation's infrastructure vital for our future. If there's a better way, or at least a different one that can still gather consensus, let's at least debate it.
McCain is right, for once.
The GOP did post an alternative budget: it had no numbers. The GOP alternative budget is as empty as their promises and their intellectual bank.
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