Budget tops House GOP’s to-do list

The first item on Republicans’ agenda next year is to produce a budget, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said late Tuesday. 

“You know, the Senate never even produced a budget, the House did. First thing we should do is produce a budget so the American people see can we can be on a path to pay off our debt and actually move forward. We should do tax reform. We should do energy policy, put this country back to work and focus on economics,” McCarthy said on Fox News. 

With the GOP in control of the Senate, Republican lawmakers will be able to more easily pass budget resolutions using reconciliation — a legislative tool that requires only a majority vote, not a supermajority needed to break a filibuster. 

Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.) is expected to succeed Rep. Paul Ryan as chairman of the House Budget Committee, and Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) is expected to take the gavel on the Senate Budget Committee. 

{mosads}Earlier on Election Day, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus also said the top GOP priority next year will be to push through a new budget. 

The budget agreement reached in December 2013, between Ryan and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) reset budget caps for fiscal 2014 and 2015, and relieved sequestration during that period.

A new budget would set spending levels for at least fiscal 2016, which begins in October. Republicans will likely try to dial back sequestration cuts on the defense side, but experts have said they would not to ease the reduction on the domestic discretionary spending side as well. 

Budget caps set under the 2011 Budget Control Act are set to return in fiscal 2016, and Republicans will likely want to quickly get through a budget resolution in order to avert potential cuts that could return if appropriators bust the budget caps that year.