Spratt, longtime top Budget panel Democrat, dies at 82

Ex-Rep. John M. Spratt Jr., the former House Budget Committee chairman who was defeated for reelection after his role in enacting the 2010 health care law, died Saturday at the age of 82.

The South Carolina Democrat died from complications from Parkinson’s disease, which he had been battling for a decade, according to a Facebook post from Catherine Spratt, one of three daughters who, along with his wife, Jane Stacy Spratt, survive him.

A moderate who pushed fiscal responsibility and a strong defense and who treaded carefully on social issues, the 14-term lawmaker fell victim to the backlash against the health care law when Republicans took back control of the House in the 2010 elections.

As Budget chairman, he sponsored the health care and education reconciliation bill that Democrats used to make changes to the larger health care overhaul, satisfying Democrats in both chambers after the party had lost supermajority control of the Senate.

Spratt was defeated by Republican Mick Mulvaney, who went on to become one of the more prominent members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus and was tapped as budget director and later acting chief of staff during President-elect Donald Trump’s first term.

Balanced-budget accord

Spratt’s top accomplishments included his role as ranking Democrat on the Budget Committee in negotiating the 1997 budget deal between then-President Bill Clinton and the GOP-run Congress that helped turn deficits into a budget surplus for several years.

The bill was projected at the time to reduce spending by $140 billion over five years, though subsequent estimates differed, and balance the budget for the first time since 1969. Spratt later called it “the biggest achievement that I can lay any claim on.”

Clinton cited his work with Spratt on the 1997 budget deal in a condolence note Catherine Spratt included with her Facebook post.

“He was masterful in his knowledge of policy and was willing to work with anyone to pass legislation that would make a difference in people’s lives,” Clinton wrote. “He had a unique ability of knowing when to hold the line and when to compromise, and it earned him the respect of all in Washington.”

Tom Kahn, a veteran former House Budget Committee staff director who worked for Spratt for two dozen years, remembers him as “the most decent man I ever met.”

“I never saw him lose his temper,” Kahn, a Democrat, said. “He was a gentleman, a statesman and a scholar.”

Spratt served as top Democrat on the Budget Committee from 1997 to 2006. When Democrats took control of the House in 2007, Spratt rose to chairman, a position he held until his defeat in 2010.

Defense hawk, but also a fiscal hawk

As the No. 2 Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, he was pro-defense but with an eye toward fiscal consequences. He voted for the 2002 resolution giving then-President George W. Bush authority to invade Iraq. He later criticized the Bush administration’s budgeting for the war.

Unassuming as he was, Spratt had lofty academic credentials — he held a master’s degree in philosophy, politics and economics from Oxford University, and a law degree from Yale, along with a bachelor’s degree from Davidson College in North Carolina.

Born in Charlotte, N.C., Spratt lived most of his life in York, S.C.

He served as a captain in the Army for two years, where he worked in the comptroller’s office in the Pentagon, after earning his law degree from Yale.

Returning to South Carolina, he joined his father’s law firm and became president of his father’s bank, as well as owner of an insurance agency.

Campaigning in his first House race in 1982, Spratt told voters that working with small-town law clients and bank depositors gave him an understanding of their circumstances. He won re-election with ease throughout the 1980s, but his margins began to drop after the national GOP targeted him in the 1990s.

Spratt was a leading advocate for the textile industry, once dominant in South Carolina. He voted for the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1993, calling it “the toughest vote I ever took.” His skepticism of trade agreements grew after that, and he opposed the 2005 Central American Free Trade Agreement and a handful of subsequent bilateral trade pacts.

Spratt also looked after his home state’s tobacco farmers at a time when his own party sought to raise cigarette and other taxes to fund an expansion of what’s now known as the Children’s Health Insurance Program.

He and Rep. James E. Clyburn, D-S.C., then his chamber’s No. 3 Democrat, worked to try to limit the tax increase in 2007; Bush ultimately vetoed that version of the legislation, but President Barack Obama eventually signed it into law two years later.

Clyburn, in a condolence note Spratt’s daughter included in her Facebook post, said serving with Spratt “was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.”

In the Facebook post, his daughter Catherine wrote that his daughters, “by knowing their father and watching how kindly he treated everyone … understood why people admired him so.”

“He told imaginative bedtime stories; cooked delicious seafood after vacation days spent riding the ocean waves of his beloved South Carolina coast; and encouraged his daughters to achieve academically and professionally,” she wrote.

In addition to his daughter Catherine and his wife, Spratt is survived by daughters Susan Spratt and Sarah Spratt, as well as grandchildren and a sister.