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K Street on budget sidelines By Patrick O'Connor
Congressional Republicans are trying desperately to pass a controversial budget bill without the support of a normally reliable constituency: corporate America.
During the Bush administration, Republicans on Capitol Hill have used broad business support to pick up relatively easy wins on bankruptcy reform and tax cuts and much tougher wins on the Medicare prescription-drug benefit and the Central America Free Trade Agreement.
On each of those votes, business groups met with members of Congress and their staffs, rallied their memberships to do the same and spent money on advertising and phone banks in support of the bills. In addition, lobbyists representing the associations regularly gathered information about member votes for the whip organizations in each chamber.
But industry is wary about spending cuts that could affect businesses' bottom lines. Because corporations are mostly on the sidelines for the upcoming budget-reconciliation votes, leadership has become more reliant on ideologically conservative groups that are pushing for the cuts.
Compounding the GOP's challenge, Americans United to Save Social Security, the predominantly labor-funded group that waged an aggressive campaign against President Bush's plan to reform the popular retirement program, has reconstituted as the Emergency Campaign for America's Priorities (ECAP) with the intent to kill the reconciliation measure.
ECAP last week targeted 13 House Republicans for a series of field events to pressure them to vote against the reconciliation cuts, which will total at least $50 billion.
The reconciliation process itself remains very much in limbo as Republican leaders in both chambers continue working with committee chairmen and conference centrists to find specific cuts that could pass Congress.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable and the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), which all played key roles in pushing the tax cuts and CAFTA, are not actively pushing the leadership-backed spending cuts. In fact, the Chamber and NAM are actively fighting some of the suggested changes to Medicare.
"The U.S. Chamber of Commerce recognizes that recent emergency spending may require cuts in some programs, but Medicare's drug benefit should definitely not be one of them," said Kate Sullivan Hare, the Chamber's director of healthcare policy, in a recorded message sent to radio stations across the country.
NAM's Neil Trautwein sent a letter to Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) last Friday protesting any cuts related to the Medicare prescription-drug benefit. Grassley is looking to slice payments to health plans offering the benefit to senior citizens.
Some heavy hitters, such as the American Medical Association, will likely endorse the budget bill. The group is rallying to stave off looming Medicare cuts, and the Senate legislation would do just that. However, the reconciliation bill as a whole is expected to trigger more opposition than support on K Street.
The Business Roundtable generally backs any measures to balance the budget, but the influential group, which led the coalition effort behind Bush's push to reform Social Security, will not take an active role in the budget fight and has no plans to reconstitute in support of the spending cuts. In fact, the group still organizes meetings every other week in support of Social Security reform and will roll out a limited buy of television ads in the next two weeks to keep reform on the radar screen.
"We have no intention to change the mission of the group to meet other near-term concerns," said Tita Freeman, a spokeswoman with the Roundtable, which oversees CoMPASS, the coalition created to fund and support Bush's Social Security fight.
Meanwhile, conservative organizations are pushing hard on lawmakers to enact the reconciliation package. The Heritage Foundation has organized a coalition in support of the cuts, and Heritage joined with the American Conservative Union and the Club for Growth for a press event last week encouraging the White House and Congress to pass them.
Heritage is sending daily talking points and other information about government programs it hopes will be cut to conservative organizations throughout the country. Those grassroots organizations then work to get that information into local newspapers, radio and television or included in letter-writing campaigns to members of Congress.
Michael Franc, vice president of government relations for Heritage, said there is a "voracious hunger" for these cuts among conservatives. "I haven't seen anything like it in over a decade," Franc said.
The Club for Growth has been rating members during the 109th Congress for the first time in its history and has plans to notify lawmakers that it is scoring each of the spending votes.
But congressional leaders still want businesses to engage in the partisan budget battle.
"I think it's important for any group around the country that [supports] the drive for limited government, lower taxes and fiscal restraint to get involved in the efforts behind these cuts," said Chief Deputy Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.), who is active among the business lobby in Washington.
Conservative leaders expect the business community eventually to join in the fight.
"I would imagine most of the business community will be there in a general sense," said David Keating, executive director of the Club for Growth.
Congressional leaders are still in the process of educating their members about the reconciliation process itself. To do this, the House GOP conference office built the "Reconciliation Record," a daily mailing sent out to reporters and member offices that breaks down the process and explains the benefits of reconciliation. Yesterday's installment read, "Reconciliation cannot be filibustered and requires only a simple majority."
Conference spokesman Sean Spicer said, "As the details evolve, we'll be working with the committees involved and our other leadership offices to ensure that we have all information that members need."