WASHINGTON -- Every year in Washington the White House and lawmakers in Congress do a strange dance. Feel free to think of it as the Budget Tango: like all things policy oriented, it’s not sexy. But there are precise choreographed movements, with the White House always taking the lead.
This year Republicans decided there would be no dance. GOP leaders upended decades of congressional protocol and refused to even invite Obama administration officials to the Capitol to discuss their budget numbers. South Florida Republican Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart is fine with the move.
“It’s not a real budget, and I don’t think you’re even going to see any Democrats, many Democrats, support that budget. It is not responsible. It never balances. It taxes – huge tax increases,” Diaz-Balart says.
Florida Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson says it's a sad day in Washington when the GOP won't even debate the White House over competing spending priorities. He says Republicans should have invited the head of the Office of Management and Budget to discuss the president’s budget.
“I think it is absolutely disrespectful for the budget committee not to invite the head of OMB. I think that’s disrespectful,” Nelson says.
South Florida Democratic Congressman Alcee Hastings is more forceful in denouncing the GOP’s snub of the president.
“I just think it’s pure rank politics and obviously this group of Republicans has decided they’re going to do everything they can to obstruct Barack Obama. That is regrettable. We are a nation that is in need of a lot of healing and a lot of bipartisan activity,” Hastings says.
This year's proposed budget has items that are easy for the public to care about. It calls for a focused effort to eradicate cancer, led by Vice President Joe Biden. It also seeks to double down on efforts to boost the renewable energy sector in order to combat climate change, which Hastings says is vital.
“But something is going on with sea level rise that needs to be addressed and if we do not, in the future, way beyond my lifetime but sooner than later you can expect there are going to be serious consequences,” says Hastings.
The president wants to impose a new $10 per barrel tax on oil, which Republicans like Diaz-Balart reject.
“Yet even the administration has had to admit that [the tax] would go back to the consumer – you’re looking at about a 26-cent tax increase on every gallon of gasoline. So that’s insane,” Diaz-Balart says.
The president is also calling for $1.8 billion in emergency funding to combat the Zika virus. South Florida Democrat Lois Frankel says it shouldn’t be a partisan issue.
“Mosquitos and sexual relations do not know politics,” Frankel says.
South Florida Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen agrees.
"We are very concerned with the Zika virus in South Florida because it’s coming from countries where those visitors pass through Miami International Airport on a daily basis by the thousands -- literally thousands of people from the Caribbean, from Central American and South America,” Ros-Lehtinen says.
But that doesn’t mean the GOP is going to write the president a check. Many Republicans want the administration to use unspent Ebola funding to combat the virus, but the administration says it still needs that money to eradicate Ebola. Ros-Lehtinen says it’s not just a monetary question.
“We need to look at a coordinated plan – it’s not just throwing more money at the problem. How can we make sure that we use the money that we do need to fight this virus in an effective manner?” Ros-Lehtinen says.
This is an election year. While neither party is likely to check off many items on their competing wish lists, the competing budget priorities will provide lots of grist for the campaign trail.
