Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN)
is introducing legislation to cut federal spending as a debt limit standoff between
Republicans
and
Democrats
intensifies.
The federal government reached its
$31.4 trillion debt limit earlier this month
, prompting the Treasury Department to take “extraordinary measures” to ensure the country avoids a default. These measures could be exhausted by early summer, according to
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen
, meaning Washington has just months to broker a deal to raise the borrowing cap.
The deadlock comes as
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA)
is seeking spending cuts in exchange for any agreement to raise the ceiling.
President Joe Biden
has said he welcomes discussions about government spending and the national debt but rejects the GOP’s calls to tie reforms to the debt limit.
Blackburn, a new member of the prominent
Senate Finance Committee
, is looking to move the ball forward, proposing three separate bills that would enact across-the-board cuts to non-defense, non-Homeland Security, and non-Veterans Affairs discretionary spending for fiscal 2024 and 2025 —
one by 1%
,
another 2%
, and the third
by 5%
.
The discretionary budget refers to federal spending not marked as “mandatory,” meaning popular programs such as
Social Security
and
Medicare
would be left untouched. The senator’s staff said she introduced three separate bills in an effort to give lawmakers flexibility in enacting cuts.
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Blackburn, a longtime fiscal hawk, has introduced legislation mandating similar spending cuts since she was first elected to the House of Representatives. It’s unclear if these bills will have momentum in the Democratic-controlled Senate.
“Over the past two years, the federal government has squandered over $6 trillion on Biden’s radical left-wing agenda alone, causing our national debt to skyrocket to over $31 trillion and inflation to soar to record highs,” Blackburn said in a statement obtained by the Washington Examiner. “Congress should have to practice logical spending habits and balance a budget, just like every family in America.”
Biden, for his part, scolded Republicans in Tuesday’s State of the Union address as battle lines are being drawn in the brewing battle over the debt ceiling.
“No president added more to the national debt than my predecessor. Nearly 25% of the entire national debt that took over 200 years to accumulate was added by just one administration alone,” Biden said in a reference to former President Donald Trump.
McCarthy agreed to push for a budget that balances in 10 years as a concession to GOP hard-liners in his race to become House speaker last month. He also agreed to a proposal that would pare back next year’s budget to fiscal 2022 levels — the equivalent of a $130 billion cut.
Budget
experts say
that without tax increases, lawmakers are limited in what they can cut if military spending and programs such as Social Security or Medicare are off the table.
Republicans could attempt to cut funding for discretionary funds, such as those earmarked for K-12 education, the National Institutes of Health, and NASA. Other options include recovering some of the COVID-19 aid the federal government sent out during the pandemic or rolling back a massive $80 billion investment in the IRS that the Democrats enacted to help staff the agency.
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Internal GOP divisions over how to reduce spending illustrate the political challenges Republicans face as they attempt to extract concessions from Biden and his fellow Democrats.
Blackburn’s bill would direct federal departments to make across-the-board cuts.
