Republicans Object to Reid’s Call for Budget Negotiating Committee

WASHINGTON â€" For nearly two years, Congressional Republicans made the Senate’s failure to pass a budget plan “Exhibit A” in their indictment of what they called the Democrats’ manifest failure to grapple with the government’s fiscal misfortunes.

On Tuesday morning, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, tried to turn that argument on its head.

Mr. Reid took to the Senate floor to formally call for a “conference” â€" a joint House-Senate negotiating committee â€" to resolve the differences between the budgets passed in March by the Republican-controlled House and Democratic-controlled Senate. Only with a negotiated agreement between the two chambers can Washington’s running budget wars be resolved in a bipartisan fashion through “regular order” â€" that is, following the usual rules of Congress.

Speaking for his party, Senator Patrick J. Toomey, Republican of Pennsylvania, stood sheepishly to object to Mr. Reid’s request.

“Without a single Republican vote in the affirmative, after giving the Republicans what they said they wanted, regular order, countless votes and passage of a budget resolution, a strange thing happened: House Republicans did a complete 180,” Mr. Reid fumed. “They flipped. They’re no longer interested in regular order.”

On Thursday, Speaker John A. Boehner said the House has every intention to try to negotiate a comprehensive budget deal, but Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, chairman of the House Budget Committee, first wants to see how close he can get through direct talks with Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, his counterpart in the Senate. This is standard procedure, since once a conference is formally called, negotiators have a limited time to cut a deal before the talks break down and the minority party can force votes on an alternative budget plan. In 2009, the Democratic House passed a budget March 13 but did not appoint conferees until May 14.

“It is ‘regular order’ for the budget chairs to agree to a framework before conferees are named, and Chairman Ryan and Senator Murray are having those conversations,” said Michael Steel, a spokesman for Mr. Boehner. “It is difficult to see what Senator Reid’s stunt today will do to help if Senate Democrats don’t even agree we need to balance the budget in the first place.”

In truth, the prospects of a negotiated settlement between Ms. Murray and Mr. Ryan are slim. The House and Senate budgets are far apart in policies and numbers. President Obama has set his sights on Senate Republicans, hoping to forge a bipartisan majority around a budget deal that includes changes to entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security and new revenues. If such a deal could be reached, the White House believes an isolated House Republican leadership could be forced to the negotiating table. Without it, Republicans will have little incentive to drop their opposition to any more tax increases.

Follow Jonathan Weisman on Twitter at @jonathanweisman.