WASHINGTON — Alabama Congressman Mo Brooks (R-AL5) on Tuesday night had a simple response when asked whether he will vote for GOP Leadership’s current budget plan, which would set the country on a course for perpetual trillion-dollar deficits: “There’s not a snowball’s chance in hell.”
Speaker Paul Ryan is facing the toughest challenge of his short tenure atop the people’s House as he tries to quell dissent among a small but influential bloc of conservative lawmakers who are pushing back against a budget framework they believe simply spends too much money.
On Tuesday, Ryan huddled with members of the Freedom Caucus, including Brooks, for a late-night “budget and beer” discussion in his Capitol office.
The Freedom Caucus members said going into the meeting they were staunchly opposed to Budget Committee Chairman Tom Price’s (R-Ga.) current plan, and urged GOP leaders to agree to deeper cuts as the nation’s debt surpassed $19 trillion for the first time.
The rub is that revisiting the current spending plan would mean going back on a deal GOP leaders cut with President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats last October as part of the $1.1 trillion omnibus package.
If Congressman Brooks’ post-meeting comments are any indication, Freedom Caucus members were not swayed by Ryan’s arguments in the nearly two-hour meeting.
“There’s not a snowball’s chance in hell that I’ll vote for that,” Brooks declared, according to The Huffington Post. “What we’re doing is like getting a squirt bottle and thinking that’s going to stop the Titanic from sinking.”
Ryan and his colleagues in the GOP leadership ranks have said they are committed to passing a yearly budget, returning to “regular order” rather than governing by short-term, stop-gap measures that often lead to threats of a “shutdown.”
That sentiment is universally shared among House Republicans, but Freedom Caucus members were optimistic that Ryan — who rose to prominence as Republicans’ top Budget guru — would negotiate as more of a budget hawk than his predecessor.
“Paul Ryan has two choices,” Brooks concluded. “He can either support a financially responsible path that rises to the challenges that America faces, or not.”
