GOP expects budget backed by defense hawks to win

House Republicans expect a GOP budget that boosts war funding will be adopted as the conference’s budget after a Wednesday floor vote.

It’s an amended version of Rep. Tom Price’s (R-Ga.) budget that would boost the Pentagon’s war fund to $96 billion. None of that spending would be offset with spending cuts.

{mosads}It’s one of three GOP blueprints that will receive votes on the House floor in an unusual move by Republican leaders that is being criticized by some defense hawks.

Under the GOP plan, the budget that gets the most votes on the floor will be adopted as the House GOP budget.

“I’m pretty confident the larger number proposal will pass,” Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.), the chairman of the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, told The Hill.

The other two GOP plans are Price’s original budget, referred to as “Price-one,” boosting the war fund to $94 billion but requiring $20 billion in offsets, and one prepared by the conservative Republican Study Committee that would cut federal spending more deeply.

If two budgets receive the same number of affirmative votes, the last budget to receive a vote will be the winner. The Price budget with increased defense spending, members are calling it “Price-two,” is expected to be the last vote on the docket Wednesday afternoon for this reason.

Republican leadership decided to pursue the unusual floor strategy to give their members a range of choices that would satisfy both fiscal hawks and defense hawks who each had problems with both versions of the Price budget.

At a closed-door conference meeting Tuesday, GOP leaders indicated they want the modified budget with additional defense spending to win the floor battle, said Rep. Matt Salmon (R-Ariz.), who said he would vote for all three GOP blueprints.

“I think they would like to see everybody vote for the Price-two, because they think that one has the best likelihood for passage,” Salmon said.

Salmon predicted that most Republicans would ultimately support the leadership plan, in part because passing a budget would lead to a reconciliation vote sending an ObamaCare repeal bill to the president’s desk.

“I think that the vast majority of my more conservative colleagues will probably end up voting for it,” Salmon said.

Even if defense hawks win, they said Tuesday that they’re frustrated with leadership’s plan.

“I don’t like it,” said Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), an Armed Services panel member. “I like what we had last week when we left here on Thursday.”

Defense hawks expressed frustration that GOP leaders have changed their assurances.

Initially, the leadership said the House would be voting only on an amended version of Price’s budget. GOP leaders had also assured defense hawks that the issue would be taken care of in the Rules Committee on Monday evening.

Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) predicted Wednesday that the conference would unify around the budget.

“Budgets are always a visionary document but it’s also a unifying document,” Scalise said. “And I think you will see a very unified House Republican conference on the floor Wednesday when we pass that budget.”

Some Republicans appeared to like the strategy.

“People want to be certain that we reign in spending, first of all, but they’re really concerned about meeting the needs of our military,” Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), a member of the House Budget Committee, told The Hill. “I’ll probably vote for the RSC budget and Price-one and Price-two. I think we’ll put them on the board and see what ends up passing.”

Salmon and Blackburn aren’t the only Republicans planning to vote for all three. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, said he would, too.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) suggested to The Hill he’s open to voting for any of them because a lot is at stake. If any of the budgets fail, Republicans would lose the opportunity to pass major policy changes with the Senate.

“Yeah, I’ll vote for whatever gets us enough votes to make sure that we can get a deal with the Senate,” said Nunes, who predicted the amended Price budget would win.

Some fiscal conservatives who oppose increasing defense spending said they also expect the Price budget with higher Pentagon spending to pass.

“I think there’s more defense hawks than there are deficit hawks,” said Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.). “I am disappointed that the message we’re sending is that if something is really important to us, we don’t have to pay for it.”

The Senate is expected to vote on a similar budget by Friday. If both resolutions pass the chambers, Republicans are hoping to reach a conference agreement by mid-April.

— Bernie Becker and Scott Wong contributed.