The House Freedom Caucus has issued its demands for the upcoming FY24 budget year:
We remain committed to restoring the true FY 2022 topline spending level of $1.471 trillion without the use of gimmicks or reallocated rescissions to return the bureaucracy to its pre-COVID size while allowing for adequate defense funding.
Right off the top, I confess that I'm confused by this number. It refers solely to discretionary spending—which excludes Social Security, Medicare, and other programs that are automatically funded—but every place I look has a different figure for discretionary spending. The OMB, for example, says that discretionary budget authority for FY22 was $1.788 trillion. The Congressional Budget Office says $1.661 trillion. HFC says $1.471 trillion. And all of these are different from actual outlays.
Whatever. But even if we accept the $1.471 trillion number, keeping it at no growth produces an FY24 budget cap of $1.63 trillion after accounting for inflation. This means we have three different numbers in play:
- HFC demand: $1.471 trillion
- Debt ceiling agreement: $1.59 trillion
- Based on real FY22 level: $1.63 trillion
So what's the deal here? It's no surprise that the HFC doesn't accept the debt ceiling cap since they were mad about that from the beginning. But do they not believe in inflation? It's a real thing, not some kind of partisan flim flam. The Senate is working off the debt ceiling number, which is really and truly a cut from FY22 levels. Why is the HFC opposed to this?
Plus there's this:
These numbers are all from the Congressional Budget Office, so the comparison across time is apples to apples. It's shown as a percentage of GDP, since that's the normal way of presenting budget numbers. And I charted it back to 2000 so you can see I'm not cherry picking anything.
Bottom line: the HFC has nothing to complain about. Discretionary spending in 2023 is already below pre-COVID levels, and based on the debt ceiling agreement spending in 2024 will be not only below pre-COVID levels, it will be below year 2000 levels. What more can they want?
I'm not pretending to be naive here. Needless to say, I know exactly what they want: whatever number produces the biggest cuts in programs that liberals want. They give the game away with their other demands:
- Include the House-passed “Secure the Border Act of 2023” to cease the unchecked flow of illegal migrants, combat the evils of human trafficking, and stop the flood of dangerous fentanyl into our communities;
- Address the unprecedented weaponization of the Justice Department and FBI to focus them on prosecuting real criminals instead of conducting political witch hunts and targeting law-abiding citizens; and
- End the Left’s cancerous woke policies in the Pentagon undermining our military’s core warfighting mission.
These are just wet dreams, not things that have even a remote chance of passage. But this is their price for agreeing to a temporary spending extension if new budgets aren't ready by the September 30 deadline—which everyone knows they won't be. So it's basically just a fancy way of saying they won't vote for an extension under any circumstances because they'd prefer to shut down the government instead.
Still, as crazy as the HFC is, none of this would be a problem if Kevin McCarthy were willing to pass a clean extension with both Republican and Democratic votes. It's only his insistence on passing an extension solely with Republican votes that gives the HFC any power. Without their votes, Republicans can't gin up a majority on their own. Bring in Democrats, though, and there's no problem putting together a bipartisan majority.
What's wrong with that?
Put together a bipartisan majority, and Kevin CarthyMcCarthFace is no longer House Speaker...
But that would require enough Republicans with honor and conscience. They all got voted out in 2022.
Ranked choice voting for House Speaker might be a good idea. I suppose, however, that it has almost no chance of being adopted.
After blowing on the debt ceiling they really need to come through this time. Otherwise, what would be the point of their existence? Shut down the federal courts for 3 months and you know who will be pleased as punch!
This is real life for the vast numbers of federal employees and members of the armed forces. This will be a fiasco for the GOP. Lots of lower level Feds, enlisted members and contractors will be very hurt by a shutdown, the contractors won't be made whole either, they weren't in the last shutdown.
Fortunately I've seen this coming since Trump was elected - I've been a super saver since. I can hold out for as long as it takes until enough GOP members surrender to reality to get a clean CR passed.
As I recall, trump and his gang want to fire most of you anyway so this would be a head start. Not saying it’s good, just saying that as political strategy it would be passable. Good luck.
Just to be clear, while it will be bad for feds without savings, those with savings were just fine, because all feds were made whole. In fact, when I worked for the government (and had savings), Government shutdowns were just extra paid vacation.
Contractors, however, were not paid and unless they worked for unusually generous companies, they were not made whole. They are the ones who will get it worst (sadly, I am a contractor now...).
To be clear lower GS level, lower paid feds do exist and would be hurt when they exhaust their small savings while waiting to be made whole. So for the GOP, a feature not a bug
We're rolling into an election year and they need bragging rights.
Well, His Kevin's practical problem is that, if he passed it with (D) assistance, the rest of his conference would descend upon him like a pack of methjackals and rend him limb from limb.
OK, I'm still not seeing a down side, either. You got me.
Zing!
Bottom line: the HFC has nothing to complain about.
Um ... wut?
Throwing temper tantrums is their brand. It's their reason for existence. That's what they do! That's ALL they do!!!
When the words "bloated Federal budget" are part of every sentence...
Since McCarthy is observing the Hastert rule, it is incumbent upon the Democrats to remind everyone that it was named for a convicted pedophile.
IOKIYAR
It's a great synopsis of the contemporary GOP:
a) A small minority of elected GOP officials want maximum confrontation with those they claim to be their existential enemies (the "woke mob," the "deep state," "globalists," "groomers," etc.).
b) The vast majority of elected GOP officials, being more-or-less pro-business but otherwise conviction-free transactional pols, but vitally dependent on extremist turnout to keep their highly gerrymandered seats, want to avoid primary challenges from the genuinely lunatic right at all costs.
The result is a level of extremist capture of a major party that we have not seen since the height of McCarthyism--and arguably worse even than then, since the party is now so much more ideologically compact, and utterly lacks credible leadership able and willing to push back, no matter how belatedly.
Succinctly put. And just for background, I think it's important that neither party controls much funding any longer, so party "leaders" don't have much leverage these days. McCarthy's supine helplessness is the inevitable end state, largely thanks to SCOTUS.
This situation is a lot worse for the gopers right now because so many of their elected oddballs thrive on the small-donor direct-marketing grift, and gazillionaire right-wing crackpots funnel so much money through "foundations" and superPACs with, well, eccentric programs.
No prob. Biden will cave again.
The long-term fix for this mess is to change the rules for slecting the Speaker, such that small minority cannot prevent a winner.
Just for example: after three rounds, only members that got more than X (e.g. 5) votes in the previous round and were not the last in that round can be candidates, and the member that is left ater evrybody else was eliminated is the winner, even if they didn't get half of the votes.
That will prevent the situation when the Speaker must pacify the extremes of their party to be elected, because if the extermes don't vote for their side the other side wins.
From all those places which make you wonder "How could anybody live there?"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_Caucus#/media/File:House_Freedom_Caucus_Membership.png
What's wrong? It means you have to be speaker of the whole House.
I have two points here:
--"It's only his insistence on passing an extension solely with Republican votes that gives the HFC any power."
Well, yes and no. In theory the "Hastert rule" (the one that's named for an admitted molester, but never mind that) seems to agree with you if it says nothing gets to the floor without a majority of the R caucus supporting it-- plenty of room there for harmony and sweet reason. But another version of the rule says nothing advances unless it has enough R votes to make a majority by themselves. I think that's the version the HFC prefers.
But let's not forget the poison pill in his deal with them back in January, that any one member can move to vacate the speakership at any time and thereby tie up the HR in knots and immobilize it. All it takes is one bright soul in the HFC willing to trip that wire and save the Republic from all that evil spending.
--"But do they not believe in inflation?"
Well, yes and no (and really I think you had your tongue pretty far in your cheek here). Yes, when it's something they can blame Biden for. No, when it's nastier and more restrictive to focus on nominal spending levels. To be fair, some of them might think percent-of-gdp accounting uses too many big words or is otherwise some kind of situational-ethics trap to ensnare the pure of heart. But mostly I think they don't care about being intellectually consistent. It gets in the way of good sound bites.