BUDGET/GOP: “Fiscal hawks on Capitol Hill panned the budget deal reached by Republican leaders and Democrats on Thursday [2-8-18] as fiscally irresponsible and an abrogation of the GOP’s congressional majorities.
Senators and House members on the right immediately came out against the agreement, while a large number of leadership-aligned Republicans were also noncommittal. It’s unclear whether the opposition to the deal, which calls for $300 billion in new spending, will put it in jeopardy. But it has certainly put the Republican Party’s reputation for fiscal discipline on the rocks, coming on the heels of a tax law projected to increase the deficit by $1.5 trillion…
A slew of House conservatives stood up in a closed-door Republican conference meeting Thursday to chide Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and his team on the package, which would increase spending on defense and domestic programs. One of those was House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), a longtime Ryan ally, who argued that the plan would balloon the nation’s more than $20 trillion debt…
The conservative opposition could make passage difficult. While the budget deal is expected to easily clear the Senate, House GOP leaders know they’ll struggle to get votes and will have to rely on Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Democrats to pass the agreement. Pelosi, for her part, spent hours on the House floor Wednesday demanding legislative action on Dreamers, the undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children. President Donald Trump has ended the program protecting them from potential deportation, and Democrats have demanded to address the problem for month.”
-Rachel Bade, Burgess Everett, and Sarah Ferris, “Conservatives slam budget deal,” Politico, Feb. 7, 2018 04:14pm