Via Politico: GOP unveils strict new House rules
The new House Republican majority will force lawmakers to vote when they want to raise the nation’s debt ceiling, publish committee attendance records, ban former members from lobbying in the House gym and require new mandatory spending to be offset by cuts to other programs.
These proposals, which are subject to amendment, will not be official until the new House is sworn in in January. It should be noted that rules changes for a new Congress, especially when there is a change in partisan control, are quite normal.
The most difficult to implement will be the one about spending and cuts:
On the spending front, Republicans plan to implement a series of rules called CUT/GO — a conservative answer to the PAY/GO rules instituted by Democrats. Under CUT/GO, increases in mandatory spending would have to be offset by spending cuts in other programs. Mandatory spending refers to the autopilot portion of the budget covering Social Security, Medicare and other programs designed to make payouts based on eligibility criteria rather than a set dollar figure each year.
Under CUT/GO, offsets could not be achieved by raising taxes, according to the summary.
More power to them on this subject, but it is one of those rules that tends to be more gimmick than anything else. At least, that’s my position until such a time as the House proves otherwise.
