House Republicans Wednesday are unveiling their response to President Biden’s 2022 budget, putting forward a record that they say could balance the federal budget in five years while reducing earnings by $1.9 billion.
These cuts, combined with decreased regulations, increases in the retirement age for Social Security and eligibility age for Medicare, among other things, the RSC says, will bring the United States into a balanced budget in five decades.
“The Democrats are introducing socialism and radically expanding the use of government, and in just a brief amount of time, we are already seeing the negative effects of their schedule on the economy. We’re seeing a spike in the cost of living and slower than expected job growth. And this is just the beginning,” Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., the RSC chairman, said in a statement.
Banks added:”It is time Republicans reclaim the mantle of fiscal responsibility and show voters an alternate vision for conservative government.
“The Republican Budget is floor-ready, a comprehensive plan suspended in common-sense conservative coverage,” Rep Kevin Hern, R-Okla., stated. “Republicans are ready to govern in the majority, and this budget helps us establish it to the American people. Our tried-and-true pro-growth strategy will boost the market while giving middle and working class Americans more control over their money.”
The RSC budget is almost certain not to pass, or even get a vote on the House floor, on account of the truth that Democrats control both chambers of Congress. Even presidential budgets such as the one Biden declared earlier this year are basically symbolic gestures intended to demonstrate priorities instead of viable legislative proposals.
Thus, the RSC funding also has provisions which don’t influence the funding in any way. Among them are an opposition to packaging the Supreme Court, a proposal to split the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to two different circuit boards, support for COVID liability protections for companies, and resistance to overly problematic occupational licensing.
The budget also includes a great number of pro-life provisions along with a notable line on the criminal justice front, expressing the RSC’s opposition to civil asset forfeiture abuse.
“Under current law, federal, state, and local authorities can seize someone’s property unless that individual can prove that he or she obtained it legally. This must change,” the RSC review reads.
Back on the front, the RSC proposal could also notably need a supermajority vote for ongoing settlements — the way the government has been funded in the last couple of years in lieu of a traditional budget.
“Continuing settlements only expand, for a period of time, the discretionary funding levels and corresponding priorities of the previous fiscal year. This represents the height of Congress abandoning its responsibilities by not handling the mounting debt crisis or taking into account the views of its constituents to reform discretionary spending in a means that is logical for the forthcoming financial year,” the statement says. “Thus the RSC Budget proposes statutorily requiring a supermajority vote to finance the government through a continuing resolution.”
Among other provisions, the budget would institute a permanent ban on earmarks; create special congressional committees to reform Social Security and Medicare trust funds like the TRUST Act from Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah; state support for a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution; force Congress to stay in session until it finishes a funding resolution; end subsidies for plants; eliminate dairy subsidies; end the Federal Communication Commission’s Universal Service Fund; tie repayment rates on student loans into the projected earnings in certain programs; make it easier to fire federal employees; reform federal pensions; remove the Economic Development Administration; remove Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) grant applications; and much more.
According to many, Republicans have lost their credibility on the dilemma of government spending following four years under former President Trump, when they did little to keep deficits in check. Even prior to the coronavirus pandemic forced the Trump government to back album spending, deficit spending increased under Trump in where it had been under former President Obama.
Yet with all the pandemic subsiding and concerns about inflation growing, many Republicans are saying now is the time to reign in federal spending and concentrate on trying to balance the national government’s books.
Following the presidential elections in November, Senate Republican Whip John Thune, R-S.D., told The Hill that cutting spending would be”sort of getting back to our DNA… I’d expect you will hear a lot more about that” under President Biden.
Indeed, Republicans voted unanimously against Biden’s approximately $2 trillion coronavirus relief plan and are in the process of attempting to negotiate the administration back on its also about $2 trillion American Jobs Plan for a more concentrated infrastructure bill. Republicans are then expected to attempt and block Biden’s American Families Plan entirely once Democrats try to advance that in Congress.
The RSC in its funding summary goes out of its way to warn regarding the rapidly increasing federal debt, which is now about $28.3 trillion.
“The RSC Budget attempts to achieve all these aims while attaining fiscal discipline and preventing trillions of dollars out of being added to the national debt, which defense experts have said is the greatest danger to our domestic security,” it says.
