The House leadership carefully courted support from two competing factions this week within the Republican party. The conservative Republican Study Committee Members opposed additional spending and wanted to institute budget process reform measures that would have weakened the authority of the Appropriators. Moderates lead by Mike Castle (R-DE) informed the leadership that they would vote against the bill unless the same funding levels passed in the Specter/Harkin amendment on the Senate side were incorporated in the House Budget Resolution.

The Rules Committee on Wednesday chose not to allow a Castle amendment to increase spending to be brought to the floor. A whip count by the leadership indicated that at least 10 Moderates were expected to vote against the budget as a result of eliminating the Castle amendment. A maximum of fifteen Republican votes could be lost before the bill would be defeated, as no Democrats were expected to support the bill. The leadership believed it had sufficiently placated the conservatives enough that they would have enough votes for passage.

However, in order to secure the conservative votes, the leadership allowed restrictions to be placed on a third powerful faction, thirty-seven GOP Members of the Appropriations Committee. The leadership’s concessions to conservatives allowed more restrictions on earmarks and more importantly, limited Appropriators ability to use emergency disaster spending without receiving the prior approval of the Budget Committee. Conservatives believe that too many programs are now being funded “off budget” by being designated as emergencies by the Appropriators. These concessions were too much for Appropriations Chairman Jerry Lewis (R-CA), who told the leadership that Members of the Appropriations Committee would vote against the Budget if such restrictions remained in the bill.

As a result of the infighting among these three Republican factions, the leadership did not have enough votes for passage and chose to pull the vote. This was a defeat for new Majority Leader Boehner, who negotiated extensively with the competing factions to bring the bill to passage.

The defeat of the Budget Resolution is not necessarily good news for supporters of increased domestic spending. Chairman Lewis has told colleagues he does not need a Budget Resolution, he is happy to work with the overall spending limits provided in the Bush budget. The overall spending limits was increased $16 billion in the Senate Budget Resolution due to concerns about a lack of adequate funding for domestic programs, particularly those like WIA that are funded within the Labor, HHS, and Education Appropriations Subcommittee. If a Budget does not get passed this year, the result will be a highly divisive Labor-HHS Appropriations Conference this fall, as the funding levels in the House and Senate bills will be dramatically different. Last year, the House negotiators won the battle to curtail spending, but Senate Appropriators have vowed not to be defeated by the House in a similar fashion again this year.

The House WIA Dear Colleague letter to the Appropriators sponsored by Reps. Jon Porter (R-NV) and John Tierney (R-MA) is being circulated today for signatures, as the House Appropriations Committee has a 5pm deadline for the receipt of all FY 07 Dear Colleague letters.

Please write Senators Cantwell and Collins and Reps. Porter and Tierney, thanking them individually for their leadership in sponsoring this Dear Colleague letter and ensuring that funding for WIA is a national priority.

We are putting together quite a line-up! The whole event kicks off with a Pre-Conference co-sponsored by USAWorks. NWA CEO David Bradley will be leading a full day workshop on the outcome of the Mid-Term Congressional Elections! This is a great opportunity to collaborate with leading Directors from all over the country as a precursor to the Conference which opens on Sunday December 3.

Visit our website at: ww w.nwaonline.org to obtain more information on our conference as well as a registration form.