WASHINGTON — A day after saying he wouldn’t support a Senate Republican budget plan, because it only outlined $4 billion in budget cuts, Rep. Tom Tiffany, R-Minocqua, joined other GOP fiscal hawks who reversed themselves Thursday and supported the measure.
They said they dropped their opposition after the Senate’s top Republican agreed to seek $1.5 trillion in spending cuts.
“We did not have those 48 hours ago. We do now,” said Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas.
Tiffany said the legislation respects taxpayers and ensures that there will be tax cuts and strong border security. But the holdouts frustrated members of their own party, after delaying the vote on Wednesday evening.
Rep. Derrick Van Orden, R-Prairie du Chien, accused the holdouts of being more interested in getting lobbied by the president than in advancing the president’s agenda.
“There's a group of people in my conference who have lost their way, and they have forgotten that the mission is America,” Van Orden said. “It's not their social media followers.”
Tiffany disputed that Wednesday evening, saying they held the line to push for deeper spending cuts.
“It's really important that that happens,” Tiffany said.
Democrats warned that cutting $1.5 trillion in spending means steep reductions to programs like Medicaid, although the House Speaker said no Medicaid benefits would be affected.
“While the party of so-called ‘fiscal responsibility’ claim they will fight ‘waste, fraud and abuse,’ in reality, their crusade will result in people losing their health care while massively increasing the federal deficit over the next decade through budget gimmicks,” Rep. Gwen Moore, D-Milwaukee, said in a statement.
The legislation approved Thursday set the dollar figures for the tax and spending cuts. Republicans, who control both chambers, will now spend the next weeks and months trying to agree on how to reach those targets, a process that is expected to be difficult.
