by Jules Witcover

The new Republican majority in the House, built in considerable part by the election of tea party stalwarts, is already paying a price for the overzealous GOP 2010 campaign promise to cut $100 billion from the federal budget.

The refusal of the tea partiers to go along with the House leaders' proposal of $74 billion in cuts has ignited a stiff intraparty row muddying the first weeks of the new reign of Speaker John Boehner. Heavy scrambling is going on among Republican budget examiners to dampen down a revolt that has thrown a wet blanket on the House takeover.

President Obama is scheduled to unveil his own budget Monday, and the House Republican leaders had hoped to show a united front in the reductions they would offer as a down payment on the party's $100 billion pledge. Instead, they have been conferring over ways to raise the proposal closer to the target by cutting more domestic spending, certain to trigger Democratic ire.

The setback came on the heels of two embarrassing defeats last week in the House on legislation the GOP leaders thought were easy winners. One was a proposal to extend controversial provisions of the Patriot Act regarding detention policies. The other was a vote on cutting off funding for the United Nations. The leadership committed the politically unpardonable sin of not having counted the votes they had before bringing up the measures.

The row over the $100 billion budget cut pledge came in the context of the Obama administration's approaching call to Congress to raise the federal debt ceiling in a few weeks. Failure to do so could force a shutdown of government services, inviting economic chaos.

The last time such a shutdown occurred was in 1995, when then House Speaker Newt Gingrich threatened one and President Bill Clinton called his bluff. Gingrich was forced to retreat, and today's Republican leaders are well aware of the politically damaging outcome to their party if it happened again.

The latest internal dispute over budget cuts is also a case of bad timing. At week's end conservatives gathered in Washington for their largest get-together, the annual meeting of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, head of the new House Tea Party Caucus, sharply chastised the House GOP leaders for presenting their members with numbers short of the pledge. "We need a lot more than we're getting served up," Bachmann said.

Freshman Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, son of libertarian favorite Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, went well beyond the pledge in calling for a whopping $500 billion slash in the budget. The proposal illustrated the view of many veteran Republican legislators that the zealous newcomers to Congress have unrealistic notions of what the new GOP leadership can accomplish.

Another dash of reality was served up at the conference when business tycoon Donald Trump, apparently weighing a presidential candidacy of his own, told the crowd bluntly that the senior Paul, who has been a presidential candidate, could not be elected, generating a loud chorus of boos.

The CPAC meeting traditionally is the first major political event after midterm elections for Republican presidential hopefuls to trot out their wares. Others on the schedule this year were former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, former Speaker Gingrich, Govs. Mitch Daniels of Indiana and Haley Barbour of Mississippi, and former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania. Two CPAC favorites, former Govs. Sarah Palin of Alaska and Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, chose not to come.

In all, the first weeks of the new Congress have not been the bed of roses the House Republican leaders hoped for after their sweeping midterm congressional success. The compromises struck in the lame-duck session before they took control of the House were viewed by many as a losing hand for their party. Since then their leaders, once in charge, have gotten off to an uneven start.

President Obama, now burdened with a new foreign-policy challenge in how to deal with the revolution in Egypt, can only be grateful for the unexpected burden on the Republican leaders at this particular time, signaling more contentious days ahead.

 

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Republican Budgetary Woes | Politics

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