“I will not let a fiscal year go by without having our budget that our committee has worked hard on, and that we have worked with every member, every faction, every caucus of our conference, to get to a good place,” Arrington said Wednesday morning.

“That's all reflected in our resolution, our draft resolution, and my plan is to make sure that that resolution is marked up and passed out of committee by the end of the fiscal year,” he said. 

The current fiscal year is set to end on Sept. 30.

Arrington said more details about the scope of the plan would come “when we're ready to put it on the committee table for discussion and debate and markup.”

“But I think it's a responsible budget. It's a path to balance,” he said, “and our country desperately needs a fiscally responsible plan to and a path to balance because the current fiscal path is unsustainable, and our debt is going to implode on this country.”

His comments as efforts to release the committee’s budget blueprint seemed to be put on the backburner months ago as the bipartisan negotiations over the nation’s debt limit dominated focus on Capitol Hill.

But Arrington said on Wednesday that the budget panel has consensus on not getting through “this fiscal year without at least marking up a budget in committee and passing it."

“We’ve been working with the broader conference to get close to 218,” he added.

A House hearing on funding for transportation and housing descended into yelling and name-calling Tuesday as Republicans and Democrats went after one another over a proposal related to funding for LGBTQ projects.

The hearing featured several impassioned back-and-forths between lawmakers as Democrats leveled accusations of bigotry against Republicans for an amendment they say would strip funding for projects that would benefit LGBTQ Americans. 

In one of the hearing’s most tense moments, Reps. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) and Andy Harris (R-Md.) clashed after the Republican targeted projects he claimed promote “hormone replacement therapy and gender-affirming surgery referrals” and “groomed young children.”

He also took aim at funding for “LGBTQ senior housing” and said the “answer to discrimination is not more discrimination in this.”

Pocan retorted soon after: “You know, there's a saying, ‘How do you show you're a bigot without saying you're a bigot?’ I’m just saying, there’s a saying.”

Harris called for Pocan’s words to be stricken shortly after. But the exchange didn’t stop there.

“I know it's a little warm outside, and a snowflake can melt, but this is a little bit ridiculous,” Pocan said to some laughs, before then saying he would take down his earlier comments “because I think it's self-evident.”

Harris then reiterated his request that Pocan’s words be struck, before Pocan countered, “I said I would take down my words. Perhaps his eyes are so tired from reading so many websites that his ears can't hear.”

The back and forth continued until the hearing broke into another recess, after which Pocan asked for some of his earlier comments to be taken down.

The moment came a little while after Rep. Rosa DeLauro (Conn.), the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, asked for her words accusing conservatives of being legislative “terrorists” to be withdrawn following pushback from Harris.

DeLauro named several community projects that she said are “being summarily dismissed” under the amendment, which was ultimately adopted along partisan lines. They include, the congresswoman said, for the LGBT Center of Greater Reading in Pennsylvania, funding to expand housing for LGBTQ seniors, and the William Way LGBT Community Center in Philadelphia.

In a Tuesday statement, Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), who sought funding for the Philadelphia center, fired back at Republicans over the legislation.

“Well, just today with no notice, the Republican majority filed an amendment that out of over 3,800 projects from members of Congress, 3,800 that have been approved, they are now voting to strip funding from the only three projects that have LGBTQ in the organization's name,” Boyle said. “This is outrageous.”

During the hearing, Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.) took aim at what he described as “political theater” while dismissing criticisms from Democrats.

“Appropriation also should be appropriate. This has nothing to do with discrimination over a class of citizens or people or race; it has to do with an ideology and whether or not the taxpayers should have to pay for it,” he said. 

Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.) said later in the hearing that the projects in question “were all deemed, by both parties, eligible under statutory law and under the rules of the guidance that our friends in the majority presented at the beginning of the process.”

“So, someone thought that they were deserving or at least, were eligible under the law and the rules,” he said. “So these three projects were now singled out, out of 2,680 as suddenly not ones that we want to do.”

A bill that would prevent the Consumer Product Safety Commission from banning the products was incorporated into a funding bill for “Financial Services and General Government” Thursday. 

The head of the consumer safety commission has indicated that it is not looking to ban gas stoves, but the topic has still been heated in Washington. 

The amendment was approved as part of a larger manager’s amendment containing several other additions to the bill. It was approved in a committee voice vote without significant debate. 

The bill was advanced Thursday out of committee to the full Senate, where it will effectively need 60 votes to pass. 

The House and Senate are both carrying out their own appropriations processes, so if a bill passes one chamber, it is not necessarily guaranteed to become law. 

However, provisions blocking a gas stove ban would likely not face significant opposition in the House, which has already passed a bill to do so as a standalone measure. 

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who sponsored the gas stove amendment, celebrated its inclusion in the bill in a written statement. 

“It’s past time for Washington bureaucrats to stop overreaching and telling American families how to cook their dinner,” he said. 

 “As a member of the Appropriations Committee, I am proud to have secured this bipartisan amendment to prevent the Consumer Product Safety Commission from issuing any rule banning gas stoves and am committed to stopping the Biden Administration from extending their radical climate agenda to our kitchens,” he added. 

Gas stoves have been the center of a fierce debate in Washington after a Consumer Product Safety Commission member indicated that the panel was considering regulations or even a ban on them.

That commissioner, Richard Trumka Jr., cited health concerns related to the appliances, which have been found to leak the carcinogen benzene and have been linked to childhood asthma.

However, his suggestion launched a firestorm in Washington, with Republicans in particular outraged by the suggestion of a gas stove ban. 

In the wake of the controversy, the White House came out against a gas stove ban. 

The head of the commission, which is independent from the Biden administration though it contains presidential nominees, also said the panel was not looking to ban the products, but it appeared to leave other restrictions on the table. 

As House Republicans propose funding bills with far steeper cuts than agreed upon, critics argue that Democrats should back out of the deal — which was never committed to paper — and undo a $20 billion clawback in IRS funding.

In a letter to top Senate appropriators Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), organizations — including Americans for Tax Fairness, Groundwork Action and the Institute on Taxation and Economy Policy — say programs designed to help poorer Americans, like welfare and food stamps, are being degraded.

For that reason, they argue, the agreement to scale back the IRS overhaul is off.

“House Republicans are underfunding the very programs the agreed-upon IRS cuts are designed to protect. Thus, your Committee is no longer obliged to move forward with the IRS cuts in its appropriations and should instead fully fund the IRS at the levels President Biden requested in his [fiscal] 2024 budget,” they wrote in a Wednesday letter.

Why IRS funding is on the line

The IRS was on track to receive $80 billion in additional funding over the next decade through the Inflation Reduction Act — the sweeping health care, climate and tax overhaul signed by President Biden last summer.

Democrats were eager to bolster the IRS with thousands of new employees and technology intended to help the agency clear a backlog of tax returns and improve enforcement.

Even so, Democrats agreed to scrap $20 billion of that funding to help end a standoff over the federal debt limit and keep the U.S. from default.

The bill also ordered the IRS to draw up plans for a free online tax filing system, which the agency is scheduled to launch as a pilot program in 2024.

Republicans want to nix that program, drawing more blowback from progressive critics.

“We urge you to vigorously oppose any harmful legislative riders in this process, especially a House provision that would block the IRS from creating a free simplified tax filing system,” they wrote.

Tensions flare as House GOP pushes cuts

Democratic lawmakers ripped Republicans over the proposal Thursday during a House Appropriations Committee hearing on the Financial Services and General Government funding bill, which includes the IRS.

“The funding and policy riders in this Financial Services and General Government bill put forth by the majority are unacceptable,” top Democratic appropriator Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) said in prepared remarks at a committee markup on Thursday.

“Cuts to the Internal Revenue Service would protect tax cheats over honest, hard-working families,” she added.

Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.). a veteran appropriator, called the IRS clawback “perhaps the most egregious cut in this bill."

"The odds of a millionaire facing an audit in 2010 were around 9 percent," Hoyer said. "Recent estimates from Syracuse University indicate that the odds were as low as 1.1 percent in fiscal year 2022. That’s a reduction in oversight of 88 percent.”

Republicans don’t see any problem with continuing to slash spending in programs they want to minimize. GOP lawmakers insist that they agreed to spending caps, not floors, so the handshake deal is still fully in effect.

“What the Democrats got was the extension of the debt, so nobody’s trying to go back and say let’s undo that,” Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), Appropriations Committee vice chairman, told The Hill in an interview. “From our point of view, those were ceilings. That doesn’t prevent us from continuing to fight to try and lower things."

But Rep. Greg Meeks (D-N.Y.) told The Hill in an interview the current appropriations fight is undermining past agreements.

“It shows that their intent is to undercut the very agreement we just had to make sure that certain programs in fact continue to receive their funding level,” he said.

Growing backlash to big tax prep companies

The Republican proposal to do away with the IRS direct filing system comes amid an uproar about how private tax prep companies have been sharing taxpayer data with big tech firms.

A report from Democratic senators released this week found that big tax prep companies including H&R Block and TaxAct have been “shockingly careless” with taxpayer data, regularly sharing it with big tech platforms to effectively spy on taxpayers for marketing purposes.

“Although the tax prep companies and Big Tech firms claimed that all shared data was anonymous, the [Federal Trade Commission] and experts have indicated that data could easily be used to identify individuals, or to create a dossier on them that could be used for targeted advertising or other purposes,” the report found.

Most Democrats see the IRS direct file system as a no-brainer, but even some Republicans have expressed interest as well.

“For me, the jury is still out,” Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) told The Hill in an interview. “[I’ll need to] see how it works out in practice.”

“I’m not stating a preference one way or another, but if that happens then we’ll have something to go by,” he added.

Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (D-Texas) told The Hill the tax filing system in the U.S. needs to be simpler and that he supported the direct file pilot system from the IRS.

“I’m for that idea,” he said. “I’m always for an idea that streamlines government and makes it more efficient and easier for Americans to do whatever it is they’ve got to do.”