Conservative members of the House Republican caucus outbid their party’s official budget Monday, offering a plan to cut planned government spending by more than $7.1 trillion and balance the budget in just six years.
The aggressive plan to cut spending from all areas of government and erase deficits was introduced by the Republican Study Committee, a group of congressmen organized to push policy to the right.
The House this week will consider the budget authored by Budget Committee Chairman Tom Price of Georgia. The Republican Study Committee budget outline will not supplant that plan, but it does outline where some conservatives would like to steer the government.
The conservative budget “is a bold, conservative plan that will balance the budget, rein in rampant overspending and restore solvency to America’s safety-net programs,” said Bill Flores of Texas, the head of the Republican Study Committee.
Like the official GOP budget, the plan envisions repealing Obamacare, transitioning Medicare to a partially privatized system, and imposes even steeper cuts to Medicaid and a broad array of domestic programs.
But it would go even further, calling for specific cuts to Social Security spending.
Price, and his Budget Committee predecessor Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, steered clear of outlining Social Security reforms. The program is highly popular among seniors and is politically sensitive.
The Republican Study Committee would raise the retirement age to 70 for people born after 1962, use a definition of inflation that would lower benefits, and reduce benefits for wealthier retirees.
The conservatives also would depart from Price’s plan by increasing defense spending above the statutory cap for fiscal 2016, to $570 billion. To pay for that boost in Pentagon funding, it would cut spending below the non-defense spending cap of $493 billion for 2016, to just $405 billion. Non-defense discretionary spending, which encompasses all appropriated spending on everything from job training programs to law enforcement, is already at the lowest levels relative to the economy in decades.
With those cuts in place and the same level of revenue as expected under current policy, the Republican Study Committee sees the budget balancing in 2021. By 2025, in their estimation, the government would be running a $212 billion surplus.
