Credit: NBC News
House Republicans are moving forward with their own personal plan to cut federal spending over the next few weeks. This comes after President Biden once again rejected the idea of negotiating cuts with the GOP in the broader deal to raise the debt ceiling.
Biden said he had no interest or intentions of negotiating with House Republicans. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy warned that Biden needed to come up to the table and address the issues together, the White House dismissed the idea and said that it’s up to Congress to pass a “clean” debt ceiling increase.
However, the House GOP lawmakers did not listen to the White House and they will focus on passing the 12 annual spending bills that keep the federal government running. They will push for spending cuts as those bills are considered through the regular order of work in committee.
“The real work is done by the [appropriations] process,” a GOP aide said.
The aide also said that the process would most likely begin in May and that Republicans are hoping that work feeds into actual talks with the president about spending and the debt ceiling that they hope can still take place.
“[I]f we can … enact some cuts in there, we can say these are the things that we want to prioritize in this negotiating process,” the aide said.
The aide added that the idea is to firm up the GOP position through the regular work of Congress to show where sentiment lies in the House.
“So the idea is that we can negotiate something with him and obviously with ourselves too, and our appropriations bills can be part of that negotiating factor,” the aide said.
Fox News reported:
That source and an additional senior GOP aide suggested to Fox News Digital that the onus will be on the White House and the Senate’s Democratic majority to either accept the GOP cuts in return for the GOP’s agreement to raise the debt limit or do nothing and risk default. Republicans think the blame will increasingly fall on Biden if the House is passing spending bills through the normal process of committee work while Biden and Senate Democrats stand on the sidelines, the first aide explained.
“So that’s where that discussion is,” that aide said.
“He’s going to have to do it, or he’s going to be responsible for a default himself for not sitting down and doing what you have to do in a divided government, which is work across the political branches.”
The second aide said that outside factors would hopefully put pressure on Biden.
“Essentially, our plan is going to keep asking for meetings, keep talking with the White House,” the aide said.
“And then, obviously, as things go along with summer gas prices are going to be increased … I think the American people would be like, ‘The president needs to cut spending because inflation is killing us.’ And that’s when we start getting the tide on our side.”
