Congress’ Debt Debate Is Far From Over

The spending and debt fight of a few weeks ago is not over, and that’s because the hard work of creating, debating, and then voting on a new federal budget is still months away from completion.
That means the handful of Republican House members who refused to back the McCarthy-
Biden debt deal, and then used parliamentary tactics to stall House business a few days ago, still want cuts.
And they intend to get them in the new budget.

Fair enough.

So long as they include various sacred budgetary cattle like entitlement spending and defense, we might have a meaningful debate over the proper role and cost of government.
So far, that seems to be their goal. And playing hardball – including a government shutdown, isn’t out of the question:
“We’re looking at everything, that’s not here yet,” [South Carolina Rep. Ralph] Norman
said when asked if he would be willing to hold up funding after the September deadline.

The group’s initial win was announced Monday night, when Appropriations Committee
Chair Kay Granger (R-Texas) declared that Republicans would cut $130 billion from this
year’s spending bills by drafting to pre-pandemic levels — well below the agreement
McCarthy reached with the White House.

There’s also this, a promise not to engage in the traditional budgetary shell games:
…some of those conservatives are gearing up to push their conference to go a step
further, signaling they want spending bills below — not at — the fiscal 2022 year levels.

And the hardliners have no interest in Congress’ favorite accounting ploys, asserting
they don’t want to count clawing back old funds as spending cuts. Actual spending cuts are comparatively rare things in Washington. Usually, any proposed cuts are merely reductions in the rate of increase in spending. More money gets spent in this scenario, just less than the interested parties want.

There’s potential to have a thorough, honest debate over such practices in the current budget cycle. Just don’t count on it. Official Washington has long been allergic to year-over-year spending cuts. To the point where we are assured that reducing funding even minutely for a pol’s favorite program will likely result in the end of the Republic.

But let’s be clear: those in the GOP House caucus who want actual cuts don’t have the votes –even from some of their fellow party embers – to get them. At least not now. And they most certainly don’t have the votes in the Senate.

What to expect, then? Again, we can hope for a real debate over the role and cost of
government. But we are likely to get a great deal of very bad political theater, instead.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.

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