The White House today warned House Republicans that their $19 billion cut to fiscal 2013 discretionary spending below the cap set by last year's debt-limit deal would leave President Obama with no choice but to turn back every GOP budget bill.

The line in the sand drawn by acting Office of Management and Budget chief Jeffrey Zients came hours after House Democrats reluctantly joined the GOP in approving an energy and water spending plan that the top appropriator in Obama's party hailed yesterday for staying "within the range" of the $1.048 trillion cap agreed to by both parties' leaders during the debt-limit debate.

Even though the Department of Energy, Army Corps of Engineers and Bureau of Reclamation are funded at overall levels palatable to Democrats, "the implications for other bills are serious," House Appropriations Committee ranking member Norm Dicks (D-Wash.) told reporters earlier today (Greenwire, April 18).

Zients made almost the identical argument in his letter today to Dicks' GOP counterpart, Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.). Republicans' decision to go below the fiscal 2013 cap that their party agreed to in the debt-limit pact, Zients wrote, leaves "only two options: every appropriations bill will provide inadequate funding, or some bills will provide adequate funding so that other bills will face even deeper, more problematic cuts."

As the race between Obama and GOP challenger Mitt Romney begins in earnest this month, the political pressure on Republicans to resist any 2013 spending blueprint not embraced by their right flank is likely to grow. Conservatives have come to view the discretionary spending cap set by the debt-limit deal as insufficient given the nation's trillion-dollar deficit, giving GOP leaders more incentive to stand by their lower appropriations ceiling until after Election Day.

Yet even some House Republicans concede that the Senate's bipartisan pursuit of appropriations bills that conform to the $1.048 trillion cap means that it is ultimately likely to become Congress' final word on federal spending.

"We will trend back toward" the debt-limit deal's spending levels over time, Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.), a senior appropriator, predicted to E&E last month (E&E Daily, March 26).

Click here to read Zients' letter to Rogers.