Boehner won’t back conservative budget alternative

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) steered clear of endorsing a conservative alternative to the House Republican budget on Tuesday, saying that the proposal authored by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) would be the only one to pass the House this week.

While the Speaker and other Republican leaders touted Ryan’s plan to balance the budget in 10 years, the conservative Republican Study Committee (RSC) is advancing a proposal that would eliminate the deficit in just four years.

“I think Paul Ryan and the Budget committee have taken a responsible path in terms of laying out our priorities,” Boehner said Tuesday when asked about the more ambitious RSC plan.

Asked specifically whether he believed the conservative proposal to be “responsible,” he replied: “In their minds it is, sure.”

Boehner said that while “other people have other ideas,” he was “confident that the only one that will get a majority of the votes will be the Ryan plan.”

The House is planning to hold a series of budget votes this week. The RSC budget would begin major entitlement reforms sooner than the Ryan proposal and makes deeper cuts to discretionary spending.

In 2011, House Democrats used a procedural tactic to try to force the House GOP to adopt the more conservative RSC budget instead of Ryan's plan. After Democrats began voting "present" on the RSC budget, some Republicans had to switch their votes to “no” to avoid having it replace the official party budget by mistake.

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