The Republican Study Committee, the largest conservative caucus in the House, has released its annual budget recommendation for 2024. It certainly is ambitious.
The “anti-woke” agenda the conservatives are pushing would slash $16.3 trillion over the next 10 years and severely cut many programs beloved of both parties. There’s also $5 trillion in tax cuts thrown into the mix, although there is no mention of a magic wand to make it happen.
“Nearly every major problem facing our nation can be traced back to a failure to budget,” said RSC Chairman Kevin Hern (R-Okla.).
“It all boils down to something we’ve heard the President say quite a few times this year: Show me your budget, and I’ll show you your values. Our values are clearly on display with this budget,” Hern said.
It would balance the federal budget in seven years, according to the caucus, while also cutting spending by $16.3 trillion and taxes by $5 trillion over a decade. It cuts spending slightly less and cuts taxes more than the group’s model budget from last year, which had $16.6 trillion in spending cuts and $3.9 trillion in tax cuts.
“The RSC Budget is a reflection of our commitment to defending our constitutional rights, championing conservative values, and safeguarding the foundational principles that make our country great,” Rep. Ben Cline (R-Va.), chair of the RSC Budget and Spending Task Force, said in a statement.
The U.S. first topped $1 trillion in debt in 1981. Forty-three years later, that debt is now $31 trillion and still growing. The act of taking $16 trillion out of the economy in just a decade would destroy the nation’s finances, and force tens of millions of people into poverty. It will never pass muster even in the House with the Republican majority.
This isn’t 1790, or 1890, or even 1930. The United States is a great, big, grown-up country with 330 million people. For a few dozen congressmen to claim ownership of the nation’s “values” is idiotic. And much of the rest of Congress — including many Republicans — are going to let them know just how stupid that is.
“The RSC Budget is a reflection of our commitment to defending our constitutional rights, championing conservative values, and safeguarding the foundational principles that make our country great,” Rep. Ben Cline (R-Va.), chair of the RSC Budget and Spending Task Force, said in a statement.
The caucus had delayed releasing its fiscal 2024 budget while House GOP leaders negotiated a debt limit increase and spending cut deal with the White House, not wanting to distract from leaders’ messaging on the matter.
I’m angry because the United States is falling into an abyss, and the only ideas coming from the right are fantasies — unworkable and unable to gain a majority. We didn’t get into this mess in a decade, and it’s going to take a helluva lot longer to get out of it.
Instead of playing politics, how about some serious thinking from the right?
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