House Passes Ryan/Murray Budget By Overwhelming Margin

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The House of Representatives has just passed the budget deal reached by House and Senate Budget Committee Chairs Paul Ryan and Patty Murray by an overwhelming margin:

After a tumultuous and politically divisive year, the House ended 2013 on a rare bipartisan note by passing a budget deal supported by a nearly equal number of Republicans and Democrats.

The chamber voted 332-94 to approve the two-year budget deal crafted by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.). The legislation won the support of 169 Republicans and 163 Democrats. It now heads to the Senate, where it will likely pass next week. President Barack Obama signaled he would sign the bill into law.

The deal sets discretionary spending at $1.012 trillion for the current fiscal year — a level that will rise to $1.014 trillion in fiscal 2015 — and replaces sequester cuts slated to take effect in January with more targeted spending cuts. Absent the agreement, discretionary spending would decline to $967 billion early next year with a large proportion of the cuts hitting the Pentagon.

The agreement, which includes $23 billion in net deficit reduction, doesn’t extend expanded unemployment benefits that expire at the end of December. It also does nothing about the debt ceiling, which must be addressed sometime in the spring.

Still, the budget is a breakthrough for a Congress frozen by partisan fiscal fights for the past few years. In a practical sense, the budget will help lessen the chance of a government shutdown in mid January and again in October, just before the 2014 midterm elections.

In the end, there were only 62 Republican “No” votes against the budget, far better than the bill that ended the government shutdown fared back in October. Quite obviously, the GOP didn’t want a repeat of that particular disaster. The bill no moves on to the Senate where there will likely be a vote early next week at the latest.

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Doug Mataconis
About Doug Mataconis
Doug Mataconis held a B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University and J.D. from George Mason University School of Law. He joined the staff of OTB in May 2010 and contributed a staggering 16,483 posts before his retirement in January 2020. He passed far too young in July 2021.

Comments

  1. MarkedMan says:

    Well, I was completely wrong. I assumed only a minority of Republicans in the house would support it.

  2. walt moffett says:

    Lets hope it passes, creating a plan for where the taxes come from and where they go is why they were elected.

  3. Grewgills says:

    At first glance at the basics and the overall spending levels, this looks very close to the deal offered to the House by the Senate that they shut down the government to avoid voting on.

  4. michael reynolds says:

    I live the bum’s rush. Quick before talk radio gets geared up!

  5. James Pearce says:

    Never thought that Paul Ryan and John Boehner would be included in the “adults in the room,” but I’m glad to have been proven wrong.

    Also, this delights me to no end.

    Boehner said on Wednesday that [Tea Party groups] were “misleading their followers.” On Thursday, he escalated the rhetoric and effectively dismissed them.

    “Frankly, I just think that they’ve lost all credibility.”

    A little late to the party, I admit, but a welcome guest nonetheless.

  6. al-Ameda says:

    I always wondered what would happen when they ran out of Kool-Aid – now we know. They acted as if they were interested in governing responsibly.

  7. de stijl says:

    Part of me wants to believe that this is significant. That the 169 R votes were significant. That Boehner made a smart play in calling out Club For Growth and Heritage Action and their ilk, and refused to be bullied by them any longer. That the House Rs (and just maybe Rs in general) have finally seen that the never-ending Rightward lurch and purity purges are a bad idea. That shutting down the government and flirting with defaulting on the US debt is a very bad idea that is also very bad politics.

    That we may have seen Peak Wingnut!

    But we also have Cornyn getting primaried from the Right – and Stockman calling John freakin’ Cornyn a “liberal.” And it is Texas – the crazy is very strong there. I guess we’ll have to wait for the primary.

    I’ve been fooled before illusory Peak Wingnut moments, but I remain hopeful. I want two healthy political parties.

  8. Todd says:

    @de stijl: I think Republicans here in Texas might have learned their lesson about low-turnout primaries with Ted Cruz. Even in crazy Texas, I seriously doubt Stockman has any chance. Cruz owes more to people like Erick Erickson for his election than he does to the majority of Texas Republican voters. I doubt very many non-crazy (realizing that’s a subjective term) Republicans will stay home and not vote in this primary.