GOP delays budget blueprint

The GOP-led House Budget Committee will not take up the fiscal year 2017 budget resolution this month, according to a committee aide, who said consideration of the blueprint was being punted until March.

The aide said an existing FY-17 budget resolution enjoys "overwhelming support" among committee members, but added that the committee feels it would be best to wait until it can be first introduced to the broader GOP conference.

The existing resolution includes multiple options for Congress to consider that would direct mandatory savings, though neither the Budget Committee, nor the resolution, endorses a specific course of action.

Other Hill staffers said the delay was being driven by the need for GOP leadership to sell the plan to fiscal conservatives from the Freedom Caucus, who strongly criticized spending levels authorized by a bipartisan budget deal that staved off a government shutdown last year. The spending levels were above those mandated by the 2011 Budget Control Act.

The Budget Committee aide said congressional consideration of appropriations bills is not expected to occur until April, noting that the panel has plenty of time to introduce and consider a budget resolution next month.

"This proposal enjoys the overwhelming support of the committee members, and the chairman looks forward to sharing it with the broader Conference as we continue moving this process forward," according to committee spokesman Ryan Murphy.

Kate Blakeley, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments who used to work at the Congressional Research Service, weighed in.

"Sounds like they will couple topline discretionary numbers -- possibly lower than the budget deal of 2015 -- with a menu of proposals to cut mandatory programs -- Social Security, Medicare, etc. Probably reprising frequent pitches like raising the eligibility age for [Social Security]," she wrote in an email.

"They might do a queen-of-the-hill style vote, where the bill with the most votes is the one that is considered to have passed, so they can try out multiple options while only committing to the winner," she added. "That's what they did with competing budget proposals in the House in 2015."

But Blakeley said the "bigger picture" was how the "fiscal hawk/Tea Party side" of the House Republican Caucus continued to buck House Speaker Paul Ryan's (R-WI) authority.

"There's been stories in the last few days about House conservatives/fiscal hawks wanting to keep spending for FY-17 at the BCA levels and pursue mandatory spending changes to reduce the deficit, while Ryan wants to stick to the negotiated FY-17 BCA level and tackle mandatory spending later," she said. "This is the first big test of Ryan's ability to thread the needle within his caucus -- either bringing the Tea Party folks along, or having to buck and pass things with Dem[ocrat] support, like [former House Speaker John] Boehner did."