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WASHINGTON (AP) House Republicans are moving ahead with their long-overdue budget blueprint, even as divisions between moderates and conservatives over cutting programs like food stamps threaten passage of the measure.

Passing the measure is a prerequisite to GOP efforts to overhaul the tax code, a top priority of President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans. Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said Friday the House Budget Committee will vote next week on the plan, which would spend far more money next year than Trump has proposed.

Earlier divisions have been resolved between GOP defense hawks and the party's tough-on-spending wing. The Pentagon emerged a big winner with a $30 billion increase over Trump's budget, but divisions remain between tea party forces and Republican moderates.

The current holdup involves whether to use Washington's arcane budget process to force cuts to mandatory programs, such as food stamps or pension benefits for federal workers. Tea party lawmakers are demanding spending cuts from mandatory programs to make up for increased spending on the Pentagon.

House Republicans expect Senate Democrats to press for increases in nondefense spending, and if those are factored in, the GOP's current plan for savings looks pretty paltry.

"Give me a break," said Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio.

But moderates, some of whom cast dangerous votes for the GOP's unpopular health measure, are uneasy about voting for further cuts.

"If you throw in food stamps and other mandatory programs, then you set yourself up for the argument that you're cutting taxes for businesses and wealthy people while you're removing eligibility for people on food stamps," said Rep. Charlie Dent, R-Pa.

McCarthy also says GOP leaders are pondering a move to bundle a separate $1.2 trillion package of 12 spending bills into a single omnibus spending bill for a lengthy floor debate at the end of the month. Typically work on the spending bills follows passage of the budget measure. The budget, which was supposed to pass in April, is so far behind that the rival Appropriations Committee is almost finished with writing its 12 bills.

But floor action on the spending measures will be tricky since Democrats are opposed to many of them.

"We could go all 12," McCarthy in a brief interview outside his Capitol office. Or, McCarthy said, the spending bills could be wrapped into several smaller bundles. "We'll make that decision next week."

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The majority-Republican House of Representatives declared Friday that climate change is a national security threat while passing a defense spending bill, according to reports. It's a stunning turn for a party that hasfor along timedistanced itself from climate science in favor of business interests.

The $696 billion bill, which sets up the militarys 2018 fiscal year budget, passed by a vote of 344-81. Italso includes provisions that call for better oversight of the militarys cyberoperations and knocks back President Donald Trumps attempt to close military bases, the Associated Press reported.

The surprising section callsglobal warming a direct threat to the national security and instructs the Pentagon to create a report on how climate change could affect the military. It asks for a list of 10 bases that could be susceptible to phenomena such as increased flooding and rising oceans.

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Republicans did at one time appearready to tackle the contentious issue of climate change, when SenatorJohn McCain of Arizona secured the partys presidential nomination in 2008, according to The New York Times. McCains support for doing so included an ad that quoted him calling out former President George W. Bush on the issue and saying he had sounded the alarm on global warming.

Since then, however,the party has scaled back such supporteven if many Republicansprivately say they believe climate change is real.

Most Republicans still do not regard climate change as a hoax, White Ayres, a Republican strategist,told the Times last month. But the entire climate change debate has now been caught up in the broader polarization of American politics.

In some ways, Ayres continues, its become yet another of the long list of litmus-test issues that determine whether or not youre a good Republican.

Its become especially difficult for Republicans to budge on the issue due to President Donald Trumps stance and recent decisions. The president put Scott Pruitt, who haslong advocated against climate scientists and environmentalists, in charge of the Environmental Protection Agency, andon June 1, Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Paris climate accord, a multilateral effort meant to curb carbon emissions around the world.

But the defense bill could also, in part, be considered a win for the president, who has said he wants a strong military. The House approved a defense budget that is $30 billion more than Trump had originally asked for, but in order for it to pass, Congress will have to find a way around 2011s Budget Control Act, which calledfor $487 billion in defense spending cuts over 10 years.

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Climate Change a 'National Security Threat,' Republican-Led House Declares in Defense Bill Vote - Newsweek

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MSNBC's Joy Reid said on Thursday that President Donald Trump can make Republicans "literally accept anything."

Appearing as a guest on "All In With Chris Hayes," Reid explained that Trump saw trends in the GOP and took advantage of it.

"This is a Republican Party that's been built on resentment and a sense of victimhood, a sense of persecution - almost a persecution complex - for more than 40 years, almost 50 years, going back to the dawn of the Civil Rights movement when they felt persecuted by the world," Reid said.

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She said that Trump "gets that" and "gets them," and that's why he can make Republicans "literally accept anything."

"And not only will the voters, so will the elected officials," Reid continued. "He's cowed senators, members of Congress. He has cowed the officialdom of the Republican Party. He's cowed the Speaker of the House."

She said that's been made clear by the Republican non-response to reports about Donald Trump Jr.'s meeting with a Russian lawyer.

"They all are now for collusion," she concluded.

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And when President Xi Jinping of China visited Hong Kong two weeks ago for the 20th anniversary of its return to Chinese sovereignty, he mixed reassurances about the citys special status with an unmistakable warning not to test Beijings will.

Through it all, people in Hong Kong have been comforted by the fact that the city has its own legal system based on British common law, unlike Chinas that is proudly independent. That legal system remains robust, and it is one reason investment flows to Hong Kong. But Fridays ruling will deepen worries that Chinese influence is weakening judicial protections.

Since pro-democracy protesters occupied major streets in Hong Kong for months in 2014 a movement that came to be known as the Umbrella Revolution Mr. Xis government has sought to strengthen its grip on the city. But the democratic lawmakers held enough seats in the legislature to frustrate the citys pro-Beijing administration with filibustering and veto power over bills introduced by pro-Beijing lawmakers.

The court ruling was a disturbing and ominous development, said Willy Lam, a political analyst and adjunct professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Like many critics of the decision, he suggested that the judge had bent over backward to create a decision pleasing to Beijing.

Its a direct interference in Hong Kongs internal affairs, a breach of both its judicial independence and separation of powers, Mr. Lam said.

The ruling could galvanize opposition groups in Hong Kong. On Friday night, hundreds of protesters gathered outside the Legislative Council, a concrete and glass edifice near Victoria Harbor, to denounce the decision.

But for now, Hong Kongs pro-democracy parties have been forced into retreat after a buoyant showing in local elections last year, and some of the lawmakers who were removed may privately rue turning their oath-taking into protests.

Hong Kong returned to Chinese sovereignty from British rule in 1997. Under terms agreed upon by London and Beijing, Hong Kong retained its own legal system, as well as the Legislative Council.

When their protest movement in 2014 failed to bring about freer local elections, Hong Kongs democracy campaigners set their sights on maintaining enough members in the council to thwart policies they saw as weakening the citys separate status.

The voters did not disappoint. In September, people turned up at polling stations in record numbers, electing many of the protesters who led rallies and spent nights in tents.

It was a triumphant moment for the activists, and the message was clear: Hong Kong people reject Chinese encroachment on their citys freedoms. The next month, in the grand chamber of the Legislative Council, the newly elected legislators took the oath of office.

Thats when the troubles began.

First, the authorities came for the separatists. In November, the Chinese government took the extraordinary step of blocking Sixtus Leung, known as Baggio, and Yau Wai-ching, advocates for an independent Hong Kong, from assuming office as legislators, ostensibly because they inserted anti-China snubs into their oaths of office.

It did so by issuing a legal interpretation of the Basic Law, the charter ensuring that Hong Kong is governed according to a one country, two systems principle and that the judiciary remains independent for at least half a century from when the city returned to Chinese rule. The interpretation orders that legislators who deliver an oath in an insincere or undignified manner must be barred from office and not be given a chance to do it again.

The purge continued on Friday. The court removed the four additional legislators based on the interpretation and precedent set in the removal of Mr. Leung and Ms. Yau, arguing that they, too, had failed to take the oath properly.

The removed legislators include Nathan Law, a leader of the 2014 protests who later founded the party Demosisto with his fellow protester Joshua Wong.

Its flagrant political suppression by the government, Mr. Law said. I had read the oath completely, and the Legislative Council approved it. It only became an issue after Beijings interpretation.

Mr. Law, 24, had begun his oath saying he would never serve a regime that murders its own people and read the Cantonese word for China with an upward inflection, as if asking a question. He was the youngest person ever to win a legislative seat.

By adopting a rising intonation, Mr. Law was objectively expressing a doubt on or disrespect of the status of the Peoples Republic of China as Hong Kongs legitimate sovereign country, the judgment said.

The three other legislators who were unseated, Leung Kwok-hung, Lau Siu-lai and Edward Yiu, had delivered their oaths with various displays of defiance, including by reading extremely slowly, inserting words calling for democracy and displaying props. Likewise, their oaths were declared invalid by the court, and they have been asked to pack up in two weeks.

The four disqualified legislators may not be the last to be removed, since at least four other pro-democracy legislators used props or made defiant speeches before or after delivering the oath of office.

They played with fire and got burned, said Priscilla Leung, vice chairwoman of the pro-Beijing party Business and Professionals Alliance for Hong Kong.

Ms. Leung told reporters she might introduce a bill to amend legislative rules to prevent filibustering by opposition legislators, though she declined to offer a timeline. Weve been discussing that since I entered the Legislative Council in 2008, but we hadnt had enough votes.

Follow Alan Wong on Twitter @alanwongw.

Chris Buckley contributed reporting from Beijing.

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Court Deals Major Blow to Hong Kong's Pro-Democracy Movement - New York Times

Georg Vanberg, professor of political science and law at Duke University and president of the Public Choice Society, asked if I would post his response to his Duke colleague Nancy MacLeans portrayal of James Buchanans ideas in Democracy in Chains. Here it is.

Professor Nancy MacLeans book Democracy in Chains has received considerable attention since its release a few weeks ago. A recent Inside Higher Ed article reports on the critical reviews and Professor MacLeans allegation that these critiques are part of a coordinated, right-wing attack on her work. The books central thesis summarized elegantly in the Inside Higher Ed piece is that Nobel Prize-winning economist James M. Buchanan was the architect of a long-term plan to take libertarianism mainstream, raze democratic institutions and keep power in the hands of the wealthy, white few. MacLean concludes that Buchanans academic research program known as public choice theory is a (thinly) disguised attempt to achieve this purpose, motivated by racial and class animus.

As president of the Public Choice Society (the academic organization founded by Buchanan and his colleague Gordon Tullock), I am writing to respond to Professor MacLeans portrayal. Since she believes that critiques of the book are part of a coordinated attack funded by Koch money, let me begin with a disclosure. I have no relationship with the Kochs or the Koch organization. I have never received money from them or their organization, either personally or to support my research. I have not coordinated my response to the book with anyone. I do, however, have a personal connection to Buchanan. My father was a longtime colleague and co-author of Buchanans. I am also very familiar with Buchanans academic work, which relates directly to my own research interests. In short, I know Buchanan and his work well, but I am certainly not part of the dark money network Professor MacLean is concerned about.

There are many things to be said about Professor MacLeans book. For an intellectual historian, the documentary record constitutes the primary source of evidence that can be offered in support of arguments or interpretations. For this reason, intellectual historians generally apply great care in sifting through this record and presenting it in a way that accurately reflects sources. As numerous scholars have by now shown (see here, and links therein, for an example), Professor MacLeans book unfortunately falls short of these standards. In many instances, quotations are taken out of context or abbreviated in ways that suggest meanings radically at odds with the tenor of the passage or document from which they were taken. Critically, these misleading quotations are often central to establishing Professor MacLeans argument.

But rather than focus on details that others have already commented on, let me respond to the books overarching, central thesis. I take it that Professor MacLean wants to show that Buchanans ultimate motivation and aim was to undermine democratic institutions in an effort to preserve (or enhance) the power of a white, wealthy elite at the expenses of marginalized social groups.

Such a portrayal represents a fundamental misunderstanding of Buchanans intellectual project and is inconsistent with the basic themes that were the foundation of his published work over more than 50 years. Professor MacLean is right that Buchanan advocated for chains on democracy in the sense that his academic work led him to the conclusion that unrestricted majority rule often constitutes an undesirable method of collective decision-making. This does not, however, imply that Buchanan was anti-democratic, or interested in preserving the power and status of traditional elites. Quite the contrary. The fact that Buchanan favored limits on majority rule originates directly from his deep commitment to democratic principles, including individual autonomy and equality. Let me explain.

The central question in Buchanans work was the organization of collective decision-making politics, for short. How should collective decisions be made? What can legitimize particular decisions and the political frameworks within which they are reached? Buchanan approached these questions with a contractarian perspective, built on two fundamental principles that he never wavered from, and that are again and again discussed in his published work over decades.

The first principle is that political and social institutions (and changes in these institutions) are legitimate to the extent that they improve the welfare of all individuals who live under them. Moreover, Buchanan believed that only the evaluations of the individuals concerned (rather than some exogenous standard or expert judgment) are the relevant measures of improvement. These commitments form the basis of his contractarianism: If a social institution improves the welfare of individuals as they see it, it should be possible to secure individuals agreement to it. Conceptually, at least, unanimity rule therefore becomes the proper criterion for evaluating social institutions. Only those institutions that can secure the agreement of all individuals affected by them are legitimate. As Buchanan put it, if politics in the large, defined to encompass the whole structure of governance, is modeled as a the cooperative effort of individuals to further or advance their own interests and values, which only they, as individuals, know, it is evident that all persons must be brought into agreement (Buchanan 1986/2001: 220f.). In short, the very foundation of Buchanans project is the principle that political arrangements should make all individuals better off, and do so by their own assessment. The notion that Buchanan favored arrangements that allow an elite to extract gain at the expense of others, or to impose their views on the rest of society, is utterly at odds with his fundamental stance.

The principle that social arrangements are legitimized by providing gains to all individuals, and that the only way to assess whether individuals secure such gains is agreement, leads directly to the second key principle of Buchanans position: a commitment to the equality of all individuals. It is impossible to secure unanimous agreement to political institutions that deny some persons or groups ex ante access to the political process (Buchanan 1986/2001: 219). As a result, Buchanan concludes, political arrangements must be characterized by political equality of all those who are included in the politys membership, at least in some ultimate ex ante sense What is required here is that all persons possess equal access to political influence over a whole pattern or sequence of collective choices. In practical terms, this means that the franchise be open to all, that political agents be rotated on some regular basis, and that gross bundling of collective choices be avoided (1986/2001: 222). To claim that Buchanan was favorably disposed to institutions that institute or perpetuate political inequality, deprive some individuals or groups of political influence or establish an oligarchy, is simply mistaken.

What then, of chains on democracy? It is true that Buchanan did not think much of unfettered, majoritarian politics and favored constitutional rules that restrict majority rule. But the foregoing discussion should already make clear that this conclusion was not based on an anti-democratic instinct or a desire to preserve the privilege of a few. Instead, Buchanans careful analysis, originating in his seminal work with Gordon Tullock, The Calculus of Consent, led him to the conclusion that in choosing a political framework (constitution), all individuals will typically have good reasons to favor some restrictions on majority rule in order to protect against the tyranny of the majority. As he argued, democracy understood simply as majority rule may produce consequences desired by no one unless these procedures are limited by constitutional boundaries (Buchanan 1997/2001: 226). In other words, what justifies chains on democracy for Buchanan are his commitment to individual autonomy and equality, and his emphasis on consent as a legitimating principle for political arrangements. To paint his endorsement of constitutional limits on the use of political power as motivated by an anti-democratic desire to institute oligarchical politics is to fundamentally misunderstand Buchanans sophisticated, subtle approach to democratic theory, which was committed above all to the idea that political arrangements should redound to the benefit of all members of a community.

References:

Buchanan, James M. (1986/2001). Contractarianism and Democracy. In Choice, Contract, and Constitutions. The Collected Works of James Buchanan, Volume 16. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.

Buchanan, James M. (1997/2001). Democracy within Constitutional Limits. In Choice, Contract, and Constitutions. The Collected Works of James Buchanan, Volume 16. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.

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Duke professor Georg Vanberg on 'Democracy in Chains' - Washington Post