The House Freedom Caucus laid its cards on the table in the fight over raising the debt limit after Joe Biden published his FY 2024 budget on Wednesday.
The conservative group posted a long list of demands that they say would have to be met before they’d even “consider” raising the debt limit.
“If you want to save America, you have to shrink Washington. You must attack the bureaucracy,” said Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.). “This plan put forth by the Freedom Caucus today is a blueprint, a baseline. It should not be the end-all; it is a baseline to shrinking Washington and not just growing America, but saving America.”
Caucus members included an exhaustive list of demands, such as ending student loan bailout programs, rescinding unspent COVID-19 funds, and repealing increased funding meant to go toward the Internal Revenue Service that was included in President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act.
Lawmakers also seek to cap discretionary funding over the next decade by implementing a maximum top-line number at the current fiscal year’s level while allowing for 1% growth. By doing this, caucus members say it would allow Congress to cut spending and save nearly $3 trillion.
Both the Caucus and the White House know the votes aren’t there for either plan. As much as Biden’s budget was a political document bearing little resemblance to reality, so, too, the Freedom Caucus’s wish list of spending cuts presupposes a belief in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, and Michael Meyers.
Exclusively for our VIPs: Biden’s Pretend Budget a Political Document With an Eye on 2024
Assuming the Freedom Caucus would exempt defense spending from the budget ax, capping discretionary spending at 1% growth would mean huge cuts for states, cities, mass transit, and healthcare programs, just to name a few. Tens of thousands of people would be thrown out of work — and not just government workers.
That’s a political downside that the Caucus will not be able to overcome.
Cutting discretionary spending will be required if any semblance of control can be gained over the budget. But what the Freedom Caucus is proposing is too much, too fast.
“This enables Congress to use the appropriations process to address the many abuses and disasters caused by the Biden administration, such as the chaos at the southern border, COVID vaccine mandates and discrimination policies, and the unconstitutional ‘pistol brace’ ATF rule,” caucus members said in a letter detailing their list of demands. “Grow the economy by enacting major policy changes and reforms to the wasteful, woke, and weaponized federal bureaucracy.”
Shrink Washington. Grow America. pic.twitter.com/vhteHNpNFS
— House Freedom Caucus (@freedomcaucus) March 10, 2023
The debt ceiling fight is just underway and the Freedom Caucus holds the whip hand. And this worries the Biden administration, as evidenced by them trotting out Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to put the fear of god in the conservatives.
“In my assessment – and that of economists across the board – a default on our debt would trigger an economic and financial catastrophe,” Yellen said. “I urge all members of Congress to come together to address the debt limit – without conditions and without waiting until the last minute.”
That sounds scary, except “economists across the board” is a gross exaggeration. In fact, no one knows what would happen if the United States defaulted on its debt, and for Yellen to pretend foreknowledge of the unknown bodes well for her post-cabinet career as a soothsayer.
Real progress on getting the national debt under control won’t happen without entitlement reform. Everyone in Washington with an IQ above 80 knows this. Neither the White House nor the Freedom Caucus is addressing entitlement reform, although Biden says he wants to jack up taxes on the “rich” to pay for a short extension of life for Medicare. It’s a proposal that’s dead on arrival.
Just like the Freedom Caucus’s list of spending cuts.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member