WASHINGTON — The House on Thursday passed a $4.1 trillion budget plan that promises deep cuts to social programs while paving the way for a Republican drive to rewrite the tax code later this year.

The 2018 House Republican budget reprises a controversial plan to turn Medicare into a voucher-like program for future retirees as well as the party’s efforts to repeal the “Obamacare” health law. Republicans controlling the chamber have no plans to actually implement those cuts while they pursue their tax overhaul.

Instead, the nonbinding budget’s chief purpose is to set the stage for a tax overhaul plan – likely to add $1.5 trillion or so to the deficit over the coming decade – that is the party’s top political priority as well as a longtime policy dream of key leaders like Speaker Paul Ryan.

The plan, passed by a near party-line vote of 219-206, calls for more than $5 trillion in spending cuts over the coming decade, promising to slash Medicaid by about $1 trillion over the next 10 years, cutting other health care costs, and forcing huge cuts to domestic programs funded in future years by Congress.

Maine’s representatives split their votes with Bruce Poliquin, a Republican, voting with the majority, and Chellie Pingree, a Democrat, voting with the minority.

“It’s a budget that will help grow our economy, and it’s a budget that will help rein in our debt,” said Ryan, R-Wis. “It reforms Medicaid. It strengthens Medicare.”

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But Republicans are not actually planning to impose any of those cuts with follow-up legislation that would be required under Washington’s Byzantine budget rules. Instead, those GOP proposals for spending cuts are limited to nonbinding promises, and even a token 10-year, $200 billion spending cut package demanded by tea party House Republicans appears likely to be scrapped in upcoming talks with the Senate.

Instead, the motivating force behind the budget measures is the Republicans’ party-defining drive to cut corporate and individual tax rates and rid the tax code of loopholes. They promise this tax “reform” measure will put the economy in overdrive, driving economic growth to the 3 percent range, and adding a surge of new tax revenues that would help bring the budget toward balance.

Passing the measure in the House and Senate would provide key procedural help for the tax measure because it sets the stage for follow-on legislation that can’t be filibustered by Senate Democrats. Republicans used the same so-called reconciliation procedure in their failed attempt to kill “Obamacare,” including its tax surcharges on wealthy people.

Democrats blasted the sweeping spending cuts proposed by Republicans as an assault on middle-class families and the poor.


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