The Oklahoma tornadoes that killed at least 24 people Monday have restarted the debate in Washington over emergency spending and whether it should be offset by cuts elsewhere in the  federal budget. 

It’s an ongoing battle for dollars that most recently flared in the wake of Hurricane Sandy last fall and resulted in a highly public and angry spat between New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and his fellow Republicans in Congress (including both senators from Oklahoma), who opposed some of the funding in the Sandy disaster-aid bill. 

On Tuesday, President Barack Obama declared a disaster in Oklahoma, making people in five counties eligible for federal aid such as temporary housing and low-cost loans to pay for uninsured property damage. He pledged federal support for “as long as it takes.”

Some of the aid will flow from the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Disaster Relief Fund, but it is not yet clear whether Congress will decide that an emergency spending bill is needed to refill that fund's account. 

At a press briefing Tuesday, House Speaker John Boehner repeatedly said, "We'll work with the administration on making sure that they have the resources they need to help the people of Oklahoma." He sidestepped reporters' questions on whether spending cuts would be made to offset an emergency spending bill and why House Republicans from Oklahoma had voted against funding after Hurricane Sandy.

Within hours of the town of Moore, Okla., being slammed by the tornado Monday, some Twitter commentators were criticizing Oklahoma Sens. Tom Coburn and Jim Inhofe, both Republicans, for voting last January against a $50.5 billion bill to provide funding for Northeastern states hit by Sandy in October.

Coburn was on his way to Oklahoma on Tuesday but his spokesman John Hart said, “We don't know if an emergency aid package will even be necessary. We do know that FEMA has $11.6 billion in its Disaster Relief Fund as of this morning. We don't know if that will be enough.”

He added that “officials won't be able to do a detailed damage assessment until rescue and recovery operations are complete. We don't know when that will occur.”

And Hart noted that “If an additional emergency aid package is necessary Dr. Coburn will not change his longstanding position on offsets. Since the Oklahoma City bombing, Dr. Coburn has argued that supplemental bills should be paid for by reducing spending on less vital priorities.”

Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo. told reporters Tuesday, “The problem I had, and others may have had, with (the) Sandy (emergency spending

bill) was that it was, ‘OK, here’s a number. We think it’ll probably be that much.’ Nobody should be flying over Moore, Okla., today in a helicopter and coming back here and saying ‘We flew over and we think it’s going to cost X billion dollars and let’s just appropriate that amount of money.’ Nothing says this has to be done all at once and the best way to respond to these (catastrophic events) is to always be responding to what you know to be the need, rather than what you think the need might be.”

Blunt said that after the 2011 Joplin tornado in his state, Congress sent disaster aid in “about four different appropriations processes, one of which was just the normal appropriations bill with some targeted CDBG (Community Development Block Grant) money…. but it was in the regular appropriations bill under the (spending) limit.”

Last January, Coburn voted for, and Inhofe against, an amendment to the Sandy bill offered last January by Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, that would have offset the new Sandy outlays by reducing discretionary spending (including defense) by 0.5 percent over the next nine years. The Senate defeated Lee’s amendment, 62 to 35.

And last December, Coburn joined Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., in criticizing the Senate’s original $60.4 billion version of the Sandy relief bill for its inclusion of unrelated funds such as $150 million for restoration of fisheries in Alaska, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine.

Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Colo. and other Colorado members proposed adding $125 million for watershed protection and flood mitigation projects, including about $20 million for areas in Colorado burned by last summer’s wildfires.

Their argument was that the emergency spending bill should not be limited to areas hit by Sandy. And in the past emergency spending bills designed to deal with one disaster have tended to become vehicles for a variety of other disaster outlays and other spending.

Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana on Aug. 29, 2005. But after the original Katrina emergency spending bill in 2005, Congress subsequently passed more Katrina funding in a bills in 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2010 – all as part of other disaster-relief legislation which addressed events from Midwest flooding to California wildfires.

Coburn and McCain said last December, “As Congress considers the $60.4 billion Hurricane Sandy supplemental spending bill this week, it is critical that we ensure taxpayer dollars go to help those impacted by this devastating storm and not to wasteful spending projects.”

The quarrel over the added funding for projects unrelated to Sandy helped to delay the emergency spending bill – leading to Christie denouncing Boehner for not allowing a vote on the bill on New Year’s Eve.

Ultimately both the House and the Senate did pass an emergency spending bill – but only after many condemnations of House Republicans by Democrats and by some Northern Republicans who said emergency funds should not be offset by cuts elsewhere in the budget.

Even though most annual spending which doesn’t go to entitlement programs such as Medicaid is subject to the discretionary spending limits, or sequester, in the Budget Control Act, that law does allow for adjustments in the spending caps in certain cases including when Congress considers emergency spending.

This story was originally published on Tue May 21, 2013 2:19 PM EDT

Kicking off a first day of edits to comprehensive immigration reform legislation, lawmakers on a key Senate panel grappled Thursday over efforts to secure the nation’s borders and prevent a new wave of illegal entrants.

As expected, Democrats on the 18-member Senate Judiciary Committee were joined by two Republican members of the bipartisan Gang of Eight in opposing the most stringent border security amendments offered by opponents of the bill, ranging from a massive influx of boots on the ground at the nation’s southern border to delays to the program that would make undocumented immigrants eligible for a probationary legal status.

Win Mcnamee / Getty Images

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) (C) confers with Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) (R) and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) (L) during the Senate Judiciary Committee's markup for the immigration reform bill on Capitol Hill May 9, 2013 in Washington, DC.

But the panel also adopted a total of 21 amendments, including eight proposed by Republicans. Those included measures to beef up oversight of the legislation’s implementation, offer greater flexibility to the Department of Homeland Security to allocate funds for technology and infrastructure, and include private landowners in a task force consulting on border security. The panel also accepted an amendment by ranking member Sen. Chuck Grassley that would widen the areas subject to border security strategies beyond the most high-risk sectors.

In the seventh hour of negotiations otherwise largely devoid of fireworks, frustrated foes of the legislation lamented the defeat of seven GOP amendments throughout the day.

“The Gang stuck together – as we’d been told they would – on anything that significantly impacted their legislation that they drafted with their friends,” said leading opponent Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama.  

“The committee has consistently rejected any attempts to put real teeth in this bill to secure the border,” alleged Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz. “And if it doesn’t have real border security, in my opinion, this bill will not pass.”

Throughout the day, bipartisan drafters of the legislation emphasized their belief that the original legislation has tough border security measures and noted that they are open to improvements.

Democrat Sen. Dick Durbin, a member of the Gang of Eight, said opponents were wrong to accuse the committee of “stiff-arming” suggestions from GOP members.

 “We’ve accepted eight Republican amendments,” he said. “We’re open to good ideas from both sides.”

A frustrated Sen. Chuck Schumer, the top Democrat in the bipartisan drafting group,  suggested that Cruz and other foes of the bill decry the “false issue” of inadequate border security while working to cut the legislation’s centerpiece provision to offer a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.

The dispute spotlighted tensions in the committee as proponents of reform reject amendments intended to upset the legislation’s delicate compromises without appearing close-minded to legitimate efforts to improve the bill.

Republican Gang of Eight members Sens. Jeff Flake and Lindsey Graham were joined by Orrin Hatch in voting down a Cruz-sponsored measure that would have tripled the amount of agents on patrol and quadrupled resources like drones and helicopters at the border.

Opponents of that amendment said it would be both prohibitively expensive and unnecessarily at a time when the number of border patrol agents is at an all-time high; it failed five votes to thirteen.

The panel also rejected a Grassley amendment that would have delayed the process of making undocumented immigrants eligible to apply for provisionary legal status until the Department of Homeland Security demonstrated “effective control” of the southern border for six months.

Gang of Eight members argued that waiting to make undocumented immigrants come forward would ultimately delay the implementation of other components of reform – like a workplace-verification system – and would therefore hurt the bill’s larger goal of preventing more illegal immigration.

“I think it would be the wrong approach to delay bringing people out of the shadows,” said Flake.

By the same margin, the committee voted down a measure proposed by Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah that would have required fast-track congressional approval of the Department of Homeland Security’s border security plan before undocumented immigrants could apply for Registered Provisional Immigrant status.

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who does not serve on the Judiciary panel but is a crucial Republican supporter of the bill, said in a statement that he is "encouraged" by the process so far.

"There’s still a long way to go, but I am encouraged that we are witnessing a transparent and deliberate process to accept input to improve this legislation," he said.

The panel’s markup process will continue next Tuesday.

Related stories:

• Immigration reform's enemies, allies prep for battle
• Conservative group pegs cost of 'path to citizenship' at $6.3T

This story was originally published on Thu May 9, 2013 6:34 PM EDT

Women are a key driver of support for legislation overhauling the nation's gun and immigration laws, according to new data in the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, just as Congress prepares to take up major legislation on both of those issues.

Women outpace men in their support for stricter gun laws and immigration reform that provides undocumented immigrants a pathway to citizenship, data which becomes more salient in light of the Republican Party’s effort to regain its footing with women voters after last fall’s elections.

View full poll results here

The gender gap is most pronounced when it comes to the issue of stricter gun controls, legislation on which the Senate voted to begin consideration this Thursday.

Sixty-five percent of women said they favor stricter laws governing the sale of firearms, versus just 5 percent who favor less strict laws. Twenty-seven percent of women said the law should be kept as it is now. By comparison, 44 percent of men favor stricter gun laws, while 41 percent said laws should stay the same.

(Also of note: Self-described mothers favor stricter gun laws even more overwhelmingly; 70 percent of mothers with children in the home said that laws governing firearm sales should be tightened.)

While the gap is less pronounced, women respondents in this month’s NBC/WSJ poll were more sympathetic to arguments in favor of comprehensive immigration reform.

Women favor immigration reform that allows a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants by a 36-point margin. Sixty-seven percent of women said they would favor such a proposal, versus 31 percent who would oppose those reforms. Men also favor immigration reform, but by a slightly slimmer, 60 percent to 38 percent spread.

When explained that a pathway to citizenship would involve paying a fine, any back taxes, passing a security background check and taking other measures, men and women would favor immigration reform at roughly the same levels: Seventy-eight percent of women favor such a proposal, versus 74 percent of men.

The gender gap also extends to some high-profile social issues at the forefront of American political debate at the moment, like same-sex marriage.

In the poll, women favor allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry, 56 percent to 40 percent. Men, by contrast, favor allowing same-sex marriages, 50 percent to 43 percent. (That's a relatively seismic shift for men; in the March 2004 NBC/WSJ poll, just 26 percent of men favored gay marriage, while 52 percent opposed.)

The poll was conducted April 5-8, and has a 4.3 percent margin of error for the subsample of women, and a 4.5 percent margin of error for the subsample of men.

President Barack Obama unveiled his proposed Fiscal Year 2014 budget plan Wednesday in the White House Rose Garden, offering a combination of new spending initiatives and tax increases aimed at creating jobs and reducing future budget deficits.

In his remarks, Obama called his plan “a fiscally responsible blueprint for middle-class jobs and growth.”

He said, “We can grow our economy and shrink our deficits. In fact, as we saw in the 1990s, nothing shrinks deficits faster than a growing economy.”

He acknowledged that “too many Americans still looking for work” and said he’d address that problem by new spending which he called “targeted investments in areas which will create jobs right now.” He called for $1 billion on creation of new manufacturing innovation institutes. 

The Obama plan also calls for $50 billion for repairing highways, bridges, and mass transit systems.

He also said Congress would have to make some changes in Medicare to reduce future outlays on that program “but they don’t have to drastic ones.”

Obama proposes to increase taxes by well more than the $600 billion tax increase he signed into law on Jan. 2. For starters, he would aim to get the $580 billion by eliminating certain tax preferences for upper-income people.

His plan would also get another $124 billion or so in revenue over ten years by tweaking the inflation indexing formula used to set the levels for the tax brackets and other provisions in tax law. The change in inflation indexing would also apply to Social sec and other federal benefits, which has prompted vocal opposition from some progressives in Obama’s party.

He also proposed to raise cigarette taxes in order to help pay for preschool for children of lower-income and middle-income families.

Larry Downing / Reuters

President Barack Obama talks about the Fiscal Year 2014 Budget while next to acting Director of Office of Management and Budget Jeffrey Zients in the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington, April 10, 2013.

The Obama plan also calls for new spending, such as $50 billion for repairing highways, bridges, and mass transit systems.

The president’s budget proposal came late – nine weeks after the first Monday in February, the statutory deadline set by the 1974 Budget Act. It also came after the House and Senate had already passed their very different FY 2014 budget proposals.

The initial response to the Obama plan from Republican congressional leaders indicated that negotiations with them at this stage would not be fruitful.

“It’s not a serious plan, for the most part just another left-wing wish list,” said Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell who spoke on the Senate floor about an hour before Obama delivered his remarks at the White House. Highlights of the Obama plan had been released by administration officials last week and Wednesday morning before the president spoke.

“The document headed our way does not appear designed to bridge the differences between the House and Senate-passed budgets. That’s the role Americans would expect the president to play at this stage,” McConnell said.

The Obama plan, he scoffed, “does not represent some grand pivot from left to center. It’s really just a pivot from left – to left.”

But McConnell did praise Obama on one point: “the president seems prepared to finally concede this time that at least something needs to be done to save entitlements from their inevitable slide toward bankruptcy. I’m glad to see him begin to come to grips with the math here.”

House Speaker John Boehner agreed with McConnell on that point: Obama, he said, “does deserve some credit for incremental entitlement reforms they have outlined in this budget. But I would hope that he not hold hostage these modest reforms for his demand for bigger tax hikes. Why don’t we do what we can agree to do? What don’t we find the common ground that we do have and then move on that?”

Obama dips his toes in the ’14 waters… WH on guns: Let’s make a deal… Obama to give up 5% of his pay as sequester takes effect; who else will follow?... GOP’s return to social issues: Priebus hits Planned Parenthood, Cuccinelli defends anti-sodomy statute… And SENATE MADNESS enters the Elite 8.

Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

President Barack Obama looks out as House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (in red) points out toward the ocean during a Democratic fund raiser at the home of billionaire former asset manager Tom Steyer in San Francisco April 3, 2013.

*** Obama dips his toes in the 2014 waters: In his first events for the still-developing 2014 midterm cycle, President Obama hit a pair of fundraisers last night in California for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. Mindful of all the GOP concern that Obama’s main focus is politics and the ’14 midterms (see the questions he received at that House GOP conference meeting just a few weeks ago), Obama went out of his way to emphasize the need to work with Republicans on guns, immigration, and the budget. “Look, my intention here is to try to get as much done with the Republican Party over the next two years as I can, because we can’t have perpetual campaigns,” he said at one of the fundraisers.  “I am looking to find areas of common ground with Republicans every single day.” But he also told the attendees that he wants to help Pelosi become speaker again. “I want her once again as a fully empowered partner for us to be able to move our agenda forward.” Obama put it more bluntly at the second fundraiser. “I would be dishonest if I didn’t say that it would be a whole lot easier to govern if I had Nancy Pelosi as speaker.

*** Why Obama had to start these fundraisers so early: Despite Obama’s insistence that he wants to work with Republicans on guns, immigration, etc., don’t be surprised if GOPers focus on WHERE he was not WHAT he said. If it had its druthers, we’re guessing the White House would have preferred to hold off on some fundraising for a bit. But there’s another reason why Obama agreed to these early funders.  The president had his own intra-party politics to worry about which. Some House and Senate Dems are nervous the president is more focused on raising money for Organizing for Action rather than help the party, so this is an attempt to quiet down those critiques. Also, the Obama campaign gave the DCCC and DSCC virtually no financial help in 2012, and the folks on Capitol Hill noticed. Today, Obama remains in California, where he hits two more fundraisers -- this time for the Democratic National Committee. 

*** Let’s make a deal: Speaking of that balance between Obama being his party’s leader but also a president who wants to sign bipartisan legislation, the White House signaled yesterday that it’s willing accept any kind of compromise on gun background checks that it can get. “What the president wants to sign is the strongest gun bill he can sign,” White House Senior Adviser Dan Pfeiffer said a Politico-sponsored breakfast yesterday. “What we have to make sure is that whatever we do is better than current law.”   To us, that’s a clear message to someone like Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), essentially saying: “Take what you can get from Tom Coburn or any other Republican and just pass it.” It’s not every day the White House signals he’ll sign just about anything, as long as there is the smallest incremental improvement.  Sticking with the issue of guns, Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy will sign his state’s gun-control legislation at noon ET, and Maryland appears poised to pass gun-control legislation, too. We said this earlier in the week and others are now picking up on it: While passing gun control might be a difficult feat in Washington, states (especially those controlled by Democrats) are having a much easier time.

*** Who else is going to give up their pay? In other White House-related news yesterday, we learned that Obama will return 5% of his salary to the U.S. Treasury at a time when other federal workers are being furloughed as part of the mandatory “sequester” cuts. This is purely a symbolic move by the president, but as the Washington Post’s Cillizza notes, it could put pressure on Republicans who are more than content that the sequester remains in place. How? For one thing, don’t be surprised if Obama’s action forces GOP leaders like John Boehner, Eric Cantor, and Mitch McConnell if they also will return 5% of their salary to the U.S. Treasury. It’s a gambit, no doubt. But it’s a gambit that seemed to catch the GOP a bit off guard yesterday.

*** GOP’s return to social issues Remember when Republican elites were looking to downplay social issues (like gay marriage and abortion) as a way to broaden the party’s appeal? Well, as NBC’s Mike O’Brien writes, two high-profile Republicans in the last 24 hours were pushing hot-button social issues. RNC Chair Reince Priebus, whose “Growth and Opportunity Project” released last month recommended that the GOP be more “inclusive and welcoming,” wrote an op-ed in Red State blasting Planned Parenthood and accusing it of supporting “infanticide.” He wrote, “In the last election, Republicans were repeatedly asked about whether they supported cutting funding to Planned Parenthood. It’s time Democrats are asked whether they still support funding an organization that refuses to care for a newborn.” Folks, it’s not an accident that after the GOP has decided not to engage on gay marriage, the RNC chair is playing up abortion and Planned Parenthood. It looks like a way to appease social conservatives, who are still needed inside the GOP tent. However, the question is whether targeting abortion and Planned Parenthood is the best way to improve on the party’s struggles with female voters. But for now, realize this seems all about base politics with evangelicals.

*** Priebus hits Planned Parenthood, Cuccinelli takes on anti-sodomy statute: The other example yesterday of a high-profile Republican engaging on social issues came from Virginia GOP gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli. The Washington Post: “Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli has challenged a recent court ruling finding Virginia’s anti-sodomy law unconstitutional... A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit ruled on March 12 that Virginia’s ‘Crimes Against Nature’ statute, which banned oral and anal sex, violates the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. One judge dissented, agreeing with a lower court that the Supreme Court’s ruling in Lawrence v. Texas on sodomy laws applied only to consenting adults. The case in question involved a teenage girl and a 47-year-old man, William Scott MacDonald, who was convicted of soliciting a minor to commit a felony.” Cuccinelli’s campaign maintains that the challenge is all about “protecting children from sexual predators,” but because the statute in question bans all oral and anal sex, critics charge that it’s anti-gay. Two points here: 1) If Cuccinelli had resigned as AG, he wouldn’t have to be dealing with cases like this; and 2) he still hasn’t made a pivot to jobs and the economy, a la Bob McDonnell. By the way, don’t miss this campaign video by GOP LG candidate Pete Snyder that hits Dem Terry McAuliffe. In this crowded LG field, the GOP candidates are looking for ways to separate from the pack (and from Cuccinelli).

*** Senate Madness -- yesterday’s results: In the 19^th Century, #1 Daniel Webster defeated #5 Sam Houston, and #3 Charles Sumner bested #2 John C. Calhoun… In the Mixed Era, #1 Henry Clay trounced #4 Robert La Follette, and #14 Scoop Jackson upset #2 Henry Cabot Lodge… In the 20^th Century, #1 LBJ beat #12 Richard Russell, and #11 Mike Mansfield edged #2 Everett Dirksen… And in the Modern Era, #1 Ted Kennedy triumphed over #5 Hubert Humphrey, and #2 Daniel Patrick Moynihan beat #11 Joe Biden.

*** Senate Madness -- the Elite 8: In today’s match ups, Daniel Webster squares off against Charles Sumner in the 19^th Century bracket, Henry Clay faces Scoop Jackson in the Mixed Era, LBJ goes toe to toe against Mike Mansfield in the 20^th Century bracket, and Ted Kennedy battles Daniel Patrick Moynihan in the Modern Era.

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The Republican Party’s internal struggle over how to expand its reach will play out in stark relief at this week’s Conservative Political Action Conference, with activists locked in a near-civil war over the basic question of who should be part of the movement – and who should not.

This year’s meeting has already made news with its exclusion of notable names from the invite list: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell. 

There will be plenty of conservative stars, like Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and Rand Paul of Kentucky, along with 2012 vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan (among other potential 2016 presidential candidates). And attendees will have a chance to reacquaint themselves with familiar names and faces from the not-so-distant past such as Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin and the ubiquitous Donald Trump.

But the annual conservative confab comes at a serious and crucial moment for the Republican Party: Its last two presidential nominees lost decisively to President Barack Obama, and its lone instrument of power -- the GOP majority in the House -- has been constantly plagued by infighting between conservative insurgents and its establishment-minded leadership.

And the American right seems as divided as ever over the path forward.

“I think, increasingly, we as Republicans have come across as intolerant and unfocused on the needs of the underserved,” said Fred Malek, a fixture of GOP politics for decades.

“And we need to speak much more to the aspirational needs of people, and not speak about the dependence of the ‘47 percent,’” he added, referencing 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney’s infamous comments, “but rather how the ‘47 percent’ become part of the 25 percent or 10 percent or 1 percent.”

Ideological fealty to marginalize GOP?
That internal struggle threatens to spill into the open at CPAC, a gathering that has been established as an important gathering for official Republicans, yet still attracts the kind of stalwart conservative activists who have helped to ignite this GOP family feud. 

“I thought it was a mistake to exclude Christie,” said Vin Weber, a former Republican congressman who remains active in the party’s political leadership. “It reinforces this narrow, closed stereotype of Republicans.”

Christie angered conservatives by agreeing to implement insurance exchanges under Obama’s health care reform law, and for praising the president’s handling of Hurricane Sandy just days before the election. McDonnell upset conservatives with his new transportation law, which includes some new taxes.

“I would argue that they do not have too much to offer up in terms of the future of the conservative movement,” Jeff Bell, of the American Principles Project, said of the two governors.

Those warring views cut to the heart of the modern GOP’s internal rift. On one side are conservatives who are eager to excommunicate Republicans who commit the slightest act of ideological heresy. The other faction is composed of Republicans who worry that the party’s insistence on ideological fealty will continue to marginalize the GOP amid a changing electorate.

Though no immediate resolution is in sight, the Republican National Committee will weigh in following its own autopsy of the party’s shortcomings during last fall’s elections. It will recommend improved digital operations and a more robust outreach, but is also expected to emphasize the need for some candidates to speak in less shrill terms about sensitive issues.

“We can’t run the same campaigns. For some, it means that boneheaded comments about rape and women – that’s just not going to fly,” said a source familiar with the report, referencing GOP Senate candidates in Indiana and Missouri who lost winnable races last fall due to their controversial comments about rape.

Romney's first remarks since election
The forthcoming RNC report and this week’s CPAC gathering add up to a potentially pivotal week for the future of the party.

Jonathan Ernst / Reuters file photo

Sen. Marco Rubio addresses the American Conservative Union's annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington, February 9, 2012.

And though McDonnell and Christie were excluded from the gathering, other corners of the GOP will be well-represented. Tea Party darlings like Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn. and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, will each speak.

Also on display will be conservatives who may hope to unify the GOP as the party’s presidential nominee in 2016. Along with Rubio, Paul and Ryan, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker will also address attendees.

The influential conference concludes with an oft-hyped, closely watched straw poll of attendees’ preference in a presidential nominee.

A past winner of two such straw polls, Romney, will make his first public speech since the election on Friday. And former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, whose national star power has waxed and waned in the scope of a single presidential election cycle, will speak on Saturday.

“There’s going to be a lot of heat, but not much light,” on the presidential front said Craig Shirley, a Reagan biographer and conservative PR guru. “It’s not going to resolve itself until the first stirrings of the 2014 midterm elections.”

Related:

On eve of CPAC, GOP searches for identity, policy principles

Obama's meeting with GOP: Cordial, but no consensus

This story was originally published on Thu Mar 14, 2013 4:31 AM EDT

Republicans on Tuesday debuted their full 2014 budget, an ambitious proposal that would seek to balance the budget within a decade, but which is also almost certain to never become law.

Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., the Republican budget chief and 2012 vice presidential nominee, called his third budget an "invitation" to President Barack Obama and Senate Democrats to begin bargaining toward a deal to balance the budget. 

"This is not only a responsible, reasonable, balanced plan," Ryan said, "it's also an invitation. This is an invitation to the president of the United States, to the Senate Democrats to come together to fix these problems."

But just as Obama has made new overtures to Ryan and other Capitol Hill Republicans in hopes of breaking the fiscal logjam in Congress, Ryan produced a new budget that offers up few concessions to Democrats, and doubles down upon many of the policies on which Republicans campaigned during last fall's election.

The new Ryan budget calls for repealing Obama's signature health care reform law, and sweeping changes to Medicare for anyone under the age of 54 -- familiar policies for which Republicans have aggressively pushed during the last two years. The budget's goal would be to eliminate all but two income tax brackets, one at 10 percent and the other at 25 percent; it would raise no new revenue through taxes, cutting against the president's own demands for additional revenue.

Click here for the full text of the budget (.pdf)

"While the House Republican budget aims to reduce the deficit, the math just doesn't add up," White House press secretary Jay Carney said in a statement.

But the White House stopped short of waging a blistering assault on the Ryan plan, offering a glimmer of hope that bipartisanship might still eventually carry the day. 

"While the president disagrees with the House Republican approach, we all agree we need to leave a better future for our children," Carney said. "The president will continue to work with Republicans and Democrats in Congress to grow the economy and cut the deficit in a balanced way."

Still, Ryan defended the generally unflinching conservatism of his budget.

"That means we surrender our principles? That means we stop believing in what we believe in?" he asked at a press conference to debut his proposals. "Elections do have consequences ... This is our offer, this is our vision."

The GOP proposal comes amid new overtures by Obama to Republicans in Congress. The president had lunch last week with Ryan, and dinner with a group of GOP senators. Obama will address House and Senate Republicans separately this week, marking a pivot in his strategy toward vexing fiscal issues following bruising battles over the fiscal cliff during the first two months of this year.

Related: Ryan plan sparks budget battle

This latest GOP plan -- the third authored by Ryan since Republicans retook the House in 2010 -- is the opening salvo in a spring full of budget battles, culminating in the mid-May expiration of the nation's borrowing authority. Congress authorized a suspension of the debt limit through that deadline, but made it contingent upon the House and Senate each passing their own budget. (Republicans have repeatedly needled Senate Democrats for failing to pass a budget in recent years.)

"I hate to break the suspense, but their budget won't balance—ever," Ryan wrote in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal. "We House Republicans have done our part … Now we invite the president and Senate Democrats to join in the effort."

Mandel Ngan / Mandel Ngan / AFP - Getty Images

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan makes his way to the West Wing on March 7, 2013 for a lunch with President Barack Obama.

Ryan's blueprint claims to achieve $4.6 trillion in savings over through 2023, and steadily reduce government spending as a share of gross domestic product in the meantime. In his op-ed, Ryan asserted the reforms could boost gross national product by as much as 1.7 percent.  Ryan's previous plan projected a balanced budget outside of ten years. 

But the plan also relies on savings accrued from two plans which Republicans had staunchly opposed: the new taxes on the wealthy in the Jan. 1 fiscal cliff deal, and the $715 billion in savings from cuts to Medicare providers as part of Obama's health care reform law. 

Of the new taxes, Ryan said that Republicans were "not going to re-fight the past." When pressed as to how that principle squares with his budget's goal of repealing Obamacare, Ryan pivoted, and said that the health reform law would be so onerous, that the eventual GOP replacement would be an improvement. 

It would achieve its goal through a series of sweeping reforms, most of which are unlikely to survive the Democratic Senate or a presidential veto threat.

Ryan's budget again seeks changes to Medicare, namely by establishing an exchange of private plans (including traditional Medicare) from which seniors could choose, with the assistance of a premium support voucher. The plan would apply for those under the age of 54 — a threshold one year younger than past Ryan proposals — and also employ means-testing, in which wealthier seniors pay a higher share of their premiums.

The Ryan budget also calls for repealing the health care reform law (though it would leave in place savings from cuts in payments to medical providers, a component against which Ryan and Mitt Romney railed during last fall's campaign).

Related: From continuing resolutions to budget blueprints: What you need to know about money wrangling

The campaign also focused heavily on Ryan's past budgets, as Obama and Democratic candidates downballot railed against similar proposed changes to entitlement programs. Those attacks offered a vivid illustration of the political difficulties in putting such aggressive reform plans to paper. That experience helped inform the GOP's demand that Democrats produce their own alternative budget, through which Republican staffers will surely comb to exploit politically.

Ryan's own budget isn't short on additional conservative prescriptions, either. The 2014 budget calls for sweeping tax reform, with a goal of cutting the top corporate tax rate to 25 percent, and simplifying the income tax into two brackets. The tax cuts would be financed by closing loopholes and deductions in the tax code.

The Republican budget will also touch upon other social programs. It would block-grant Medicaid to states, and allow states more flexibility, too, in implementing welfare programs. Ryan's plan would also freeze the current maximum support for students awarded as Pell Grants, a popular program with students (and young voters) that Obama had expanded in his first term.

The proposals, as a whole, amount to a deeply conservative set of proposals offered against the backdrop of new hopes for bipartisan fiscal talks in Washington.

Obama's renewed outreach — and Republicans' relatively warm reception of it — has stoked the embers of hope that lawmakers may finally reach the kind of grand fiscal deal that has eluded them during the past few years. As Ryan unveils his new budget, Obama's own reaction could either preserve these renewed hopes, or allow them to wither after just a few days.

To that end, Obama was set to speak to House Republicans on Wednesday, and Senate Republicans on Thursday. He was also scheduled to give an interview to ABC News on Tuesday, which could be his first on-camera reactions to Ryan's new proposal.

This story was originally published on Tue Mar 12, 2013 10:07 AM EDT

MORNING JOE: Top Talkers: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has criticized Washington's inability to avert the sequester cuts, and the Morning Joe panel -- including GOP strategist Steve Schmidt and Time's Mark Halperin -- discusses why Christie is in the right and why he's well-positioned if he chooses to run in 2016.

DAILY RUNDOWN: Politico's Maggie Haberman, Alex Wagner, the Host of MSNBC's Now with Alex Wagner, and Editor at Large for Time Magazine Nancy Gibbs join The Daily Rundown's Chuck Todd to talk about the 2016 presidential election and whether Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton will possibly run.

NIGHTLY NEWS: As he starts a tour to publicize his new book about immigration reform, former Florida governor Jeb Bush is initiating a tough conversation about his party's inability to reach minority voters. NBC's Chuck Todd reports. 

TODAY: President Obama signed an order allowing deep automatic budget cuts to become law, as he and House Speaker John Boehner pass the blame for doing nothing to stop the measures. NBC's Chuck Todd reports.

NIGHTLY NEWS:CNBC's John Harwood joins Lester Holt for more on the sequester. 

MORNING JOE: Top Talkers: As expected, the $85B in spending cuts kicked in on Friday, March 1, 2013. The totality of the impact will be felt slowly, and several members of both sides of the aisle are discussing the cuts and what they mean for the country. The Morning Joe panel -- including Mike Barnicle and former senior advisor for the McCain–Palin campaign Nicolle Wallace -- discusses.

The battle over the Budget Control Act -- and the cuts contained in it known as the sequester -- is as much about tax increases as it is about spending.

That fact might have gotten lost in recent days amid press conferences and photo ops from President Barack Obama, his Cabinet officers, and Democratic members of Congress warning of meat inspectors being furloughed, trucks being slowed by long delays in Customs inspections at U.S. ports of entry, and the canceled deployment of an aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf.

Related: Sequester fight takes a toll on all

Obama and his allies argue that to help avert the $44 billion in cuts to federal outlays required by the Budget Control Act in this fiscal year, another round of tax increases is required.

Democrats later this week will bring to the Senate floor a bill to replace the spending cuts with $55 billion in tax increases on people with incomes greater than $1 million, higher taxes on the oil industry, and changes in rules on U.S. corporations with foreign operations. The Democrats’ bill would also trim subsidies to farmers and make smaller cuts to defense spending than the reductions in the Budget Control Act.

One way to look at the tax side of the battle is that Obama has an unfinished project which he detailed in his first budget blueprint in 2009, with an array of tax increase proposals. In his first term, he succeeded in shifting more of the tax burden to higher-income Americans and to U.S. coporations, first with the $400 billion in tax increases over ten years in the 2010 Affordable Care Act and then with the income tax increase he signed into law on Jan. 2, which the Congressional Budget Office estimates will raise between $600 billion and $700 billion over ten years.

But there are more tax increases that Obama asked for that he has not achieved yet. The current showdown with congressional Republicans is another occasion to get them.

Obama spokesman Jay Carney has said that Republicans would allow federal employees and contractors to be put out of work “in order to protect these special tax breaks for corporate jet owners and oil and gas companies.”

Obama has proposed a ten-year $580 billion package of tax increases, such as $2 billion in revenue from changing the tax depreciation schedule for general aviation aircraft, including corporate-owned or leased jets.

That idea raises the hackles of Sen. Pat Roberts, R- Kansas. Beechcraft Corp. and other jet manufacturers are based in Wichita, Kansas; Roberts said 40,000 jobs in his state are at stake.

“Not only do they propose that (tax increase), but the language in which they describe it, it’s always ‘fat cat corporate jets,’” complained Roberts.

He added, “The general aviation industry is always on the cusp (of financial viability) and it has become a favorite target” for Democrats’ tax increase proposals. “I’m damned tired of it.”

Roberts said, “I just don’t think it adds up – unless you want your general aviation industry to come from Brazil.”

Jewel Samad / AFP - Getty Images

President Barack Obama walks in the rain to the Oval Office on Feb. 26, 2013 upon returning to the White House in Washington.

On principle, Republicans object to Obama seeking to raise taxes again on some immediately after getting his tax increase at end of 2012. 

And there’s another reason Republicans oppose any just-get-us-past-this-crisis tax hike: every change in tax law they might agree to now chips away at what some GOP leaders hope to do as part of comprehensive tax reform later this year.

Rep. Dave Camp, R- Mich., the chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee told reporters Tuesday, “I’m not interested in a one-off (tax reform or tax increase). … What I’m interested in is a comprehensive effort” to redesign the entire tax code, both the corporate tax and the individual income tax.

He added, “I’m not interested in more revenue at this point. The comprehensive reform I’m looking at is revenue neutral. As some people say, 'We gave at the office at the end of the year’” – meaning the tax increase Obama signed into law on Jan. 2 is all he is going to get.

On the spending side of the battle, some Republicans seem to acknowledge that Obama’s campaign to portray the $44 billion in spending cuts as disruptive and potentially disastrous is having some effect.

“All the hot buttons have been pushed,” Roberts said Tuesday. “We have the Secretary of Agriculture saying, ‘we’re going to call off all the meat inspectors, shut down the packing plants.’ Every cowboy in Kansas has been in touch with me saying, ‘what in the hell am I going to do with my cow herd?’”

But some Republicans argue that it might useful to see how Americans do with $44 billion less in spending  -- out of more than $3.5 trillion in total federal outlays this year.

“I think it would be a wonderful test of whether or not we have the ability to actually reduce spending in Washington D.C.,” said Rep. Mick Mulvaney, R- S.C.

Even though he voted against the Budget Control Act, Mulvaney is willing to see it begin to bite. “I agree with many of the concerns regarding the disproportionate share the Defense Department bears here,” he said. “But that aside, the real question is; can we really cut spending? And not just cut the growth in future spending, which is typically what a ‘cut’ is in this town. Can we actually spend less money in any agency this year than we did last year?”

The South Carolina Republican said Obama and his subordinates have the discretion and flexibility they need to manage the spending reductions. “It looks as though it would be up to the administration whether to furlough air traffic controllers -- or janitors at FAA facilities. It’ll be an interesting test of the president’s management abilities.”

Another fiscal conservative, Sen. Pat Toomey, R –Pa., said Tuesday, “The magnitude of the spending cuts -- it’s very important that they be preserved and not be delayed. The willingness to go ahead with them will send a constructive message to our citizens, to the markets.”

He added, “I think they’re badly designed; I think too much of them lands on our defense budget and the nature of the across-the-board cuts precludes a more thoughtful way of prioritizing. But given the disastrous fiscal situation we’re in, we’ve got to make these cuts.”  

Spending must be reined in, he argued, and the cuts are “crude way to do it, but at least it’s moving in that direction.”

He said he supports a Senate Republican effort to give Obama and his aides some flexibility in how they administer the cuts “so they can make the least disruptive cuts possible.” But in Obama’s test of wills with congressional Republicans, that kind of flexibility might not be in Obama’s tactical interest. 

TODAY: The president hits the road today, heading to a Naval shipyard in Virginia in an attempt to build public support against a slew of spending cuts set to go into effect on Friday. NBC's Chuck Todd reports.

MORNING JOE: Must-Read Op-Eds: Before discussing Steve Rattner's charts on the potential effects of the sequester, Mika Brzezinski reads from a David Brooks NYT opinion column on why great presidents "...see situations differently" and why "[h]istory pivots around their terms."

DAILY RUNDOWN: Gov. Bob McDonnell, R-Va.,  joins The Daily Rundown's Chuck Todd to discuss sequester and how it will affect the state of Virginia as well as the state's comprehensive transportation bill. McDonnell also talks state politics showing his support for Ken Cuccinelli.

NIGHTLY NEWS: Lawmakers are emphasizing the urgency of preventing the large federal budget cuts from going into effect, so why wasn't there any progress all weekend? NBC's Peter Alexander reports. 

TODAY: As the clock ticks down with no signs of progress in Congress, President Obama is issuing warnings about the consequences of a sequester, including fewer FBI agents on the job, longer airport security lines, and more. NBC's Peter Alexander reports.

DAILY RUNDOWN: With less than 100 hours until the budget ax falls on Friday, President Barack Obama will meet with the nation's governors on Monday and later take his campaigning to Virginia. The Daily Rundown's Chuck Todd reports. 

MORNING JOE: Top Talkers: On Friday, March 1, 2013, $85B in spending cuts are set to kick in unless Democrats and Republicans can work out a deal to avoid the sequester. The Morning Joe panel – including the Council on Foreign Relations' Richard Haass and Mike Barnicle – discusses.