By Kristina Peterson and Richard Rubin
WASHINGTON -- The Republican-controlled Congress is struggling
to overcome intraparty fissures that have been expanding since the
rise of the Tea Party in 2010, threatening to derail their
legislative ambitions this year.
On Tuesday, Senate GOP leaders opted to delay a vote on their
bill that would dismantle and replace much of former President
Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act in the face of resistance among
Senate Republicans over the bill's policy planks.
Just hours earlier, across the Capitol, House Republicans
decided to punt until after the July 4 recess on unveiling their
budget for fiscal 2018 -- a necessary prerequisite for their push
to overhaul the tax code without Democratic votes -- to iron out
their own differences.
The delays bogging down marquee elements of the GOP agenda left
Republicans and President Donald Trump with little legislative
achievements after nearly six months in power. Republicans, who
control the executive and legislative branches for the first time
since early 2007, have dwindling time to make significant policy
changes before the 2018 midterm-election politics overwhelm the
Capitol.
"It's almost like we're serving in the minority right now. We
just simply don't know how to govern," said Rep. Steve Womack (R.,
Ark.). "How we've been given this opportunity to govern and we are
finding every reason in the world not to is absolutely incredible
to me."
Democrats, who are united in opposition to GOP plans, said
Republicans' stalled agenda reflected GOP leaders' inability to
wrest compromise from the dueling factions of their party.
"There's virtually nothing to show for six months of so-called
Republican leadership" said Sen. Dick Durbin (D., Ill.), noting
that House Republicans need the support of their most conservative
wing to pass a budget. "They're going to have a tough time doing
it."
The biggest setback Tuesday came in the Senate, where Majority
Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) said he would move a vote expected
this week on the GOP health-care bill until after next week'sJuly 4
recess in the face of continued opposition from both centrist and
conservative Republicans. Just hours before that decision, his top
lieutenant, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, was insisting that the first
vote would happen Wednesday.
Lawmakers will now have to face energized opponents of their
bill at home next week, compounding the political challenge of
securing the support of 50 GOP senators to pass the bill. After its
own fits-and-starts, the House passed its own version of the bill
last month, and it's far from certain that House members would
rubber-stamp a Senate bill and send it to Mr. Trump.
Asked about the possibility that members could bolt over recess
under pressure from activists at town halls, Mr. McConnell,
emerging from a hastily called meeting at the White House with
Senate Republicans, all but shrugged. "Some members have town halls
and some don't, we'll see what happens," he said.
Mr. McConnell has aimed to pass the GOP bill with only
Republican votes. Senate Democrats support the ACA and argue that
Congress should fix its glitches. On Tuesday, Mr. McConnell warned
his colleagues that voting against this plan will give Democrats
more sway in future legislative efforts.
Pushing the contentious Senate health-care vote into July likely
moves action on all of the GOP's other legislative priorities to
later in the year. Most notably, the effort to revamp the U.S. tax
system may slow as a result, despite Republicans' insistence they
can complete a major tax bill this year.
To get to a tax bill that can also pass on a party-line vote,
Republicans have to finish the health bill, one way or the other,
and then complete a budget resolution that unlocks the speedier
procedures known as reconciliation for the tax bill.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R., Utah) said
the longer the health debate, "the more difficult it is going to be
to do true tax reform."
One other roadblock in the tax effort is the intraparty dispute
slowing the progress of the House GOP budget.
Although House Republicans have agreed on the overall spending
levels for military and non-military spending for fiscal year 2018,
they remain divided over how big a cut to include for mandatory
spending, the federal government's spending on big safety-net
programs such as Medicaid, food stamps and welfare.
Many House Republicans want to trim at least $200 billion over
10 years from mandatory spending, with some conservatives pushing
for as much as $300 billion. But lawmakers said GOP leaders are
concerned that if they set an ambitious goal and then fail to meet
it, that could derail the budget process that would enable
Republicans to pass a tax-code overhaul without Democratic
support.
"To the extent that we put in significant entitlement changes,
particularly for low and moderate income people, that would make
the task of tax reform much harder," said Rep. Charlie Dent (R.,
Pa.), a key GOP centrist.
But conservatives argued that the budget process and the
procedural shortcuts it offers may be the only way to lock in
spending cuts they have long sought but rarely secured from the
biggest portion of the federal budget, where spending cuts are
politically difficult.
Republicans said they were confident they would resolve the
budget dispute early next month.
"Chairman Black is 100% committed to getting a budget done,"
William Allison, a spokesman for Budget Committee Chairwoman Diane
Black (R., Tenn.) said Tuesday. "The committee plans to keep this
process moving after the July 4th recess."
With Congress in session only three weeks in July, lawmakers
will face a crush of major policy deadlines before their August
recess.
In addition to the health-care debate in the Senate and the
budget action in the House, Treasury Department officials have
urged lawmakers to raise the federal government's borrowing limit
before August to avoid any threat of defaulting on the debt. Many
Republicans in recent years have balked at raising the debt limit,
giving Democrats leverage in the vote.
GOP leaders are also expected to negotiate with Democrats over
spending bills needed to keep the government running after its
current funding expires on Oct. 1. And Republicans haven't yet
agreed on either the broad strokes or fine details of their tax
agenda.
"It's frustrating," said Rep. Roger Williams (R., Texas). "We've
got to begin to get things done."
--Siobhan Hughes and Natalie Andrews contributed to this
article.
Write to Kristina Peterson at kristina.peterson@wsj.com and
Richard Rubin at richard.rubin@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
June 27, 2017 20:20 ET (00:20 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.