House GOP budget ‘SWAT’ team is formed

A “SWAT team” of eight House GOP lawmakers has begun meeting to strike a last-ditch deal on a fiscal 2017 budget, Republican Study Committee Chairman Bill Flores (R-Texas) told The Hill on Monday.

It’s just the latest attempt to jump-start a budget process that many on Capitol Hill have left for dead.

{mosads}“Earlier this month, I recommended that Speaker [Paul] Ryan put together a small team of interested individuals with disparate views to develop a path forward to get a budget on the floor,” Flores said during an interview in his Capitol Hill office.

“That team has been formed, and we are working on that,” he added.

The creation of the SWAT team comes amid GOP infighting over a budget resolution that has gone on for months.

Ryan and his leadership team want to stick with the $1.07 trillion levels negotiated last fall by President Obama and then-Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) just before he resigned. But the deal lifted spending caps by $30 billion for fiscal 2017.

And conservative leaders from both the House Freedom Caucus and Republican Study Committee indicated they would oppose the $1.07 trillion budget unless it was accompanied by a package of deep spending cuts.

Ryan (R-Wis) spokeswoman AshLee Strong confirmed that Budget Committee Chairman Tom Price (R-Ga.) is leading the SWAT team and said “the Speaker supports the effort.”

The House is expected to vote on an energy and water appropriations bill this week, despite not having a budget in place.

The SWAT team has already met once and will huddle again later this week.

“We have an outline of a path that might work,” Flores said, adding: “I don’t want to give any contours of the deal yet.”

Flores also declined to name who else is serving in the budget gang. But a Budget Committee source also confirmed that Price is part of the discussions.

Ryan already has an informal group of advisers that represents a cross section of the GOP conference and includes Flores, Price and Jordan. But that group only meets one hour each week and focuses on a range of issues.

The budget SWAT team can huddle for as long as it needs to as it dives into nuanced policy details.

“It will have a start time and no end time until we get something done,” Flores said.