Some Republicans continue to reject small spending cuts to make case for larger cuts

A handful of House Republicans demonstrated in the first few months of the new Congress that they are not afraid to vote against bills that cut government spending when those bills don't cut enough, or don't de-fund Obamacare.

Reps. Michele Bachmann (Minn.), Steve King (Iowa) and Justin Amash (Mich.) have so far voted against all four of the temporary spending resolutions brought up by Republicans this year. In the early Saturday vote for a one-week spending stopgap that cuts $2 billion in spending, Bachmann cited Obamacare and the related agreement to cut $39 billion for the rest of FY 2011 as reasons to oppose it.

"Instead, we've been asked to settle for $39 billion in cuts, even as we continue to fund Planned Parenthood and the implementation of ObamaCare," Bachmann said. "Sadly, we're missing the mandate given us by voters last November, and for that reason I voted against the Continuing Resolution."

Amash seemed to indicate that the small level of cuts in the full FY 2011 deal kept him from supporting it. "This extension paves the way for a deal that will reduce the size of the federal government by 1%," he wrote on his Facebook page. "Pray for our country."

Aside from that April 9 vote, Bachmann, King and Amash have voted against spending cuts three other times: an April 7 vote that would have cut $12 billion over one week, a March 15 vote to cut $6 billion over three weeks, and a March 1 vote to cut $4 billion over two weeks.

Bachmann and King so far have only voted for H.R. 1, which would defund Obamacare and cut $61 billion in spending, and a related bill that called for the adoption of H.R. 1 if the Senate refused to accept a spending deal. But Amash voted against this "force of law" spending bill over concerns about its constitutionality.

Other Republicans have been nearly as consistent as Bachmann, King and Amash. Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) voted against three of the four continuing resolutions (CRs) on spending, although he did not vote at all in last week's last-minute vote.

Paul's office said Paul has only offered short explanations for his votes, and a few times has noted there is "unconstitutional spending" in them.

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) also voted against three of the four temporary spending bills, but ended up voting for the $12 billion spending cut. Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) voted against three of the four, and only voted for the first CR on March 1. Barton's staff said Barton believes that "short term CR’s don’t address the long term problem."

Other Republicans who voted against two of the four CRs were Reps. Steve Chabot (Ohio), Jason Chaffetz (Utah), Trey Gowdy (SC), Tom Graves (Ga.), and Mick Mulvaney (SC).