House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said the White House no longer had an excuse not to engage with the party on the debt limit after he opened it. House Republicans plan to deal with Wednesday.
“President Biden has a choice: Come to the table and stop playing partisan political games or cover your ears, refuse to negotiate and risk the first default in our country’s history,” McCarthy said on the floor.
The White House has said it will not discuss the need to raise the limit in terms of government debt, it is currently set at $31.38 trillion. But he has said he will be open to separate negotiations on spending and taxes if Republicans can put forward a plan that can pass the House.
McCarthy’s speech is a signal that he thinks his caucus is on the verge of doing so, the prospect of that looks a little doubtful Tuesday. He said the legislative effort will be led by Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-Texas), chairman of the House Budget Committee.
The plan would allow the government to resume borrowing until it uses up its $1.5 trillion borrowing authority or March 31, 2024, whichever is earlier.
McCarthy said the plan would provide $4.5 trillion in savings, though he did not specify how that figure was arrived at or how it would relate to a potential $1.5 trillion increase in the debt limit.
It would return Congressional annual spending for defense and federal agencies to the same level in 2022 and then increase that amount by 1% each year.
Given inflation, which is the basic balloon of spending growth as projected by the Congressional Budget Office, the soft freeze will add up to a large amount of savings over time. The plan envisions a spending cap of $1.6 trillion in 2033, almost $700 billion less than the CBO looking forward to that year.
It would also cancel unused money set aside to fight COVID, repeal a raft of clean energy tax credits, tighten work requirements for federal cash and food assistance recipients, and ease restrictions on energy exploration.
“These spending limits are not draconian. They are responsible,” McCarthy said on the floor, perhaps anticipating Democratic criticism.
While passing the bill is a major hurdle for House Republicans, whether it can muster 218 of the 222 House GOP votes needed to pass remains to be seen.
With the appearance of no exception for defense spending, which makes up more than half of the annual allocation, the annual spending cap could face a difficult reception.
Asked about the realism of the idea of a freeze at the 2022 rate with only a small increase, Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.), former House Appropriations chairman, told HuffPost on Tuesday, “Well, we’ll see.”
And Rep. Frank Lucas (R-Okla.), former chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, warned that things like food aid work requirements are difficult, a perennial idea that is not as simple as it sounds.
“Well, we’ll see.”
– Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) on proposed discretionary spending
“This is a discussion we have in every session of Congress,” he told HuffPost Tuesday before the details were released.
“We’ll see. But many of my friends are enthusiastic about this, but we can’t work on this topic in detail. It’s the details that make legislation interesting.
In addition to certain objections, McCarthy also had to win over a small House group Republicans who have led to the war debt limit are skeptical of either the need to boost or the risk of not doing so.