(The Center Square) – A group of Republicans who want to play an outsized role in negotiations over the debt ceiling face challenges from both Democrats and Republicans in upcoming budget talks.
The House Freedom Caucus has proposed setting fiscal year 2024 appropriations to the 2022 enacted level, and capping future discretionary spending growth at 1% a year for a decade. In addition, the group has said it would vote to raise the debt ceiling in exchange for concession, including ditching the $400 billion student loan debt cancellation program, taking back unspent COVID-19 funds, pulling back $80 billion in Internal Revenue Service funding from the Inflation Reduction Act, and repealing climate-related spending from the Inflation Reduction Act.
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget said the caucus proposal could save $2.9 trillion to $3.7 trillion over a decade. However, several of the group’s proposals are likely to face opposition in the Democrat-controlled U.S. Senate.
Discretionary spending includes defense and non-defense outlays, but excludes programs such as Social Security and Medicare. Both parties and the House Freedom Caucus have signaled they wouldn’t touch Social Security and Medicare. Social Security spending accounted for $1.22 trillion in fiscal year 2022, or about 19% of federal spending, according to the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, said that the House Freedom Caucus couldn’t be accomplished solely with discretionary spending.
“No, we’re not going balance the budget on the back of discretionary spending,” he said. “Everybody knows, everybody can do math, but what we can do is prove to the American people that before we’re going to have a conversation about mandatory spending, we’re not going to be sending money to pro-prostitution LGBTQ groups in Columbia.”
Mandatory spending represents nearly two-thirds of annual federal spending, which does not require a yearly vote by Congress, according to the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
On Monday, the White House called the House Freedom Caucus proposal a “five-alarm fire” that would “be a disaster for families in at least five key ways: endangering public safety, raising costs for families, shipping manufacturing jobs overseas and undermining American workers, weakening national security, and hurting seniors.”
Despite potential challenges from both Republicans and Democrats, members of the House Freedom Caucus said Wednesday they were committed to the plan.
U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., said that House Freedom Caucus had proven its might in January’s House speakership debate.
“American saw what the House Freedom Caucus is made of in January,” she said. “Lies don’t move us, media coverage doesn’t move us, attack ads don’t move us. Policy moves us.”
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., has yet to release a Republican budget proposal. President Joe Biden has outlined a $6.9 trillion budget proposal.
