Budget

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer this morning urged Democrats to vote against a bill that would end taxpayer funding for presidential campaigns and party conventions. The bill, H.R. 359, will be up for a vote later today.

"H.R. 359 would not strengthen our federal election campaign process, nor would it help to correct some of its current flaws," Hoyer said in a morning whip notice. "It would simply eliminate the program, which aims to give smaller donors an equally important role in the election process."

As many as five hours of debate are allowed today on the bill, but it should not take that long, as only six amendments will be considered. A brief summary of the six that were printed in the Congressional Record and thus are eligible for consideration:

1) Ensure that all money saved (estimates are $617 million over ten years) goes to reducing the deficit, from Rep. Gary Peters (D-Mich.).

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) will tell the nation that America is about to go over a budgetary cliff if deficits are not reining in, according to excerpts of the televised Republican response to the State of the Union released Tuesday evening.

The remarks are intended to counter calls in President Obama's speech for more targeted spending on education, innovation and infrastructure.

“Our nation is approaching a tipping point. We are at a moment, where if government’s growth is left unchecked and unchallenged, America’s best century will be considered our past century,” Ryan will say.

He will also attack what he calls attempts to make the U.S. into a welfare state.

House Democrats on Tuesday finalized the party's Budget Committee membership for the 112th Congress, bumping the panel's third-ranking Democrat in the process.

Rep. Xavier Becerra (Calif.), vice chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, no longer has a seat on the panel charged with authorizing the spending priorities of the federal government. 

The Democratic Steering Committee last week had named 15 of the 16 spots reserved for Democrats on the Budget panel following the midterm elections. Becerra was included on that list, but the full caucus postponed its final vote of approval until this week. Over that span, Becerra was dropped, while Reps. Bill Pascrell (N.J.) and Heath Shuler (N.C.) were added.

Becerra's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Shuler's inclusion is seen as a nod to the fiscally conservative Blue Dog coalition.

The Budget Committee is scheduled to gather on Wednesday for an organizational meeting, followed by a hearing on the fiscal consequences of the new healthcare reform law.

Democrats on Tuesday also filled several other outstanding committee slots. Rep. Allyson Schwartz (Pa.) was newly named to the Foreign Affairs panel; Rep. Linda Sanchez (Calif.) found a spot on the Veterans' Affairs Committee; and Reps. Zoe Lofgren (Calif.) and Charles Gonzalez (Texas) both kept their seats on the House Administration panel. 

—This post was updated at 7:15 p.m.

Top Senate Republicans on Tuesday called President Obama’s reported plan to freeze non-security discretionary spending for five years insufficient, just hours before the president is scheduled to deliver his State of the Union address.

Sens. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) and Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) introduced a bipartisan bill on Tuesday requiring that any leftover money from lawmakers' office accounts go directly to paying down the federal debt, instead of being returned to the Treasury for other government spending.

"With the national debt now topping $14 trillion Congress must scour and scrutinize all spending, and that begins with our own congressional office budgets," Nelson said. 

Currently, unspent funds go back to the Treasury. The bill will capture unused funds and direct them straight to deficit and debt reduction.

The House on Tuesday approved a measure intended to set austere budget goals for the current fiscal year. 

The Obama administration offered its strong opposition Tuesday to GOP legislation ending federal funding of presidential campaigns. 

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) late Monday estimated that a bill eliminating taxpayer funding for presidential elections would save $617 million over the next 10 years.

H.R. 359 is due on the House floor this week and will be debated in the Rules Committee on Tuesday morning. It amends federal law to end the option on income tax forms to earmark part of one's taxes for the Presidential Election Campaign Fund (PECF). It would also shut the fund and transfer remaining balances to the Treasury.

The bill is opposed by good-government groups, which argue that eliminating the option of forgoing private funds in the general-election campaign in order to take federal funds would drive candidates further into the hands of lobbyists.

The CBO estimates that the bill would save $215 million in the 2012 election cycle.

For the 2008 presidential election cycle, outlays from the PECF totaled $135 million, the CBO states, even though President Obama ultimately opted out of using $85 million in federal funds.

Acceptance of federal funds forces candidates to agree not to use private donations in the fall campaign, thereby effectively capping the amount they can spend. McCain in the 2008 campaign blasted Obama for pledging to use federal funds and then abandoning his pledge.

Two Democratic Senators praised news reports on Monday that President Obama won't propose raising the retirement age or reducing Social Security benefits in his State of the Union address. 

During a conference call with reporters, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said he was pleased to hear that the president won't propose either during his speech Tuesday night despite being included as main components of his fiscal deficit commission. 

"I think for the tens and tens of millions of American workers and for senior citizens, that is very welcome news," Sanders said. "So I applaud the president for standing up for Social Security, for his understanding that this is a program that has worked fantastically well for 75 years, and that he is going to defend it."

The House Budget panel's second-ranking Republican is pressing his leadership to keeps its promise to cut $100 billion in non-defense discretionary spending for the remainder of this year and reduce spending to fiscal 2008 levels. 

Rep. Scott Garrett (R-N.J.) sent a letter signed by 89 of the 176 members of the Republican Study Committee (RSC) to Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Monday urging him to stick with the GOP's initial cost-cutting vow that helped the GOP win control of the House last fall. 

"Despite the added challenge of being four months into the current fiscal year, we still must keep our $100 billion pledge to the American people," the letter said. "They represent a credible down payment on the fiscally responsible measures that will be needed to get the nation’s finances back on track."