This week, President Joe Biden released his budget proposal, and House Republicans have been quick to criticize it as too expensive and a potential recipe for raising taxes and increasing the national debt. Republicans have not yet released their own budget proposal, but in the last two months they have started to reveal what cuts they are proposing.
House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, has proposed cutting nearly $100 billion in uncommitted COVID money, reinstating work requirements for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), reducing fraud in the Child Tax Credit (CTC) and SNAP (food stamp) Program, capping Obamacare subsidies at 400 percent of the poverty level and recovering overpayments, cutting nearly $90 billion in funding for the Environmental Protection Agency included in the Inflation Reduction Act, ending Biden's student debt cancellation, and cutting $13 billion in green spending for electric vehicles for the U.S. Postal Service and buses with low emissions, among other cuts. Additionally, various conservative think tanks in Washington, D.C., such as the Heritage Foundation and the Center for Renewing America, have proposed billions worth of cuts to Defense, Housing and Urban Development, the CDC, and Health and Human Services.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said last week, “Everyone knows Biden's out-of-control spending is what's causing the inflation that's driving up the prices on almost everything. You deserve to know what he's costing you.” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has also called the national debt “one of the greatest threats to America.”
Democrats, however, are questioning how Republicans intend to get to FY2022 budget levels without cutting Social Security and Medicare, which both parties have said they will not touch. House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer have both called out the GOP for not releasing a budget yet.
The House budget is due April 15, and both Arrington and Scalise have said their caucus is working to meet that deadline. It remains to be seen how Republicans will reconcile their proposed budget cuts with the need to keep Social Security and Medicare intact, and whether their budget will be able to pass the House.