GOP Sen. Lugar says he’ll support House Republican spending cuts

Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), who faces a Tea Party-backed
challenge in his 2012 primary, has withdrawn his stated opposition to
House-passed spending cuts.

Lugar said Tuesday afternoon that he made a mistake when he
told reporters earlier in the day that he would oppose H.R. 1, the House GOP
plan to cut an additional $57 billion from the 2011 budget.

“I’m going to vote with the Republicans on the issue when
H.R. 1 comes up,” Lugar said. “If it’s strictly an affirmative vote, I will be
for H.R. 1 because all the Republicans will be voting for H.R. 1.”

Lugar said he does not like the “formulation” of the
spending cuts passed by the House and would like Congress to go even further to
cut the deficit.

“My own feeling would be that we probably need to have more
extensive savings than $58 or $61 billion,” he said.

Slightly more than an hour earlier in the day, Lugar told
reporters that he would oppose the House bill as he walked into a weekly lunch
meeting with Republican colleagues.

Lugar apologized for the confusion.

“I’m sorry if I misled people,” he said. “I’m going to vote
for the Republican resolution, which is as clearly as I can say it.”

Lugar said he misunderstood the question because of the
chaos of the press scrum that chased him to the door of the Lyndon Baines
Johnson Room.

“I couldn’t figure out what the question was, I simply did
not understand what everyone was all shouting and jumping around about,” he
said. “Nevertheless I have indicated to the Republican Whip that I will vote,
whenever the vote is — this afternoon or tomorrow — with the entire Republican
group on H.R. 1.”

A Republican senator who attended the lunch meeting said
leaders made a strong argument for all members of the caucus to support the
House bill. The GOP lawmaker said Lugar did not speak up during that discussion
and no comments were directed at him specifically.

As Lugar entered the weekly caucus lunch, he indicated he
would oppose the House bill, saying, “I’m opposed to it.”

Lugar had previously raised concerns about the bill
during a television appearance last month.

When CNN host Candy Crowley asked Lugar if he could support
the House-passed spending cuts, he said: “No, I would not support the entirety
of the House bill, but I think the basic problem presently is there’s very
little time.”

Lugar said he worried about a possible government shutdown.

This story was first posted at 1:28 p.m.