The House Budget Committee is examining the budget of “every agency” in an effort to identify cuts to reign in federal spending that can gain majority approval in the House.
The effort has become more urgent since House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) announced the outline of a plan to deal with the debt ceiling and reduce future spending during an April 17 speech at the New York Stock Exchange.
Acknowledging that the task of aligning Republicans around a specific plan may be difficult, committee member Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) said it was nevertheless vital to pare back federal spending in the face of growing debt.
“You can’t continue spending and not have any adjustments,” Norman said in an April 18 interview with NTD, sister media to The Epoch Times.
“It’s not going to be easy. Every dollar spent has an advocate up here. That’s what we’re paid to do though.”
According to McCarthy, House Republicans intend to return discretionary federal spending to 2022 levels, cap spending growth at 1 percent for the next 10 years, take back unspent money granted to states for COVID-19 relief, and restore work requirements for able-bodied non-caregivers receiving public assistance.
President Joe Biden criticized the direction Republicans are taking, saying it financially benefits the wealthy while hurting average Americans.
“Yesterday, the Speaker of the House Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, went to Wall Street. He did not tell the wealthy or the powerful on Wall Street that it was finally time for them to start paying their fair share of taxes,” Biden told a White House audience on April 18.
“Instead he proposed huge cuts to important programs that millions of Americans count on,” Biden said.
Working to flesh out that plan, the budget committee has fielded more than 500 amendments offered by House members, suggesting cuts to each agency, according to Norman.
The committee will weigh the options and create a budget that can be forwarded to the full Congress, he said.
Though the process is still in the “discovery phase,” according to committee member Rep. Jack Bergman (R-Mich.), one obvious area to look for savings is in departments with unspent money.
“There is an endless number of pockets of money in Washington, D.C., in all the different departments. So the first thing you have to do is capture what hasn’t been spent. How do we claw that back?” Bergman told NTD on April 18.
“I guarantee every governmental department has pots of money that have just been sitting and accumulating. But there’s been no effort [to recover it] because the bureaucracy wants to hold on to it because someday they might use it,” Bergman said.
“There’s nothing wrong with a savings account,” he added. “But the point is, that’s not a core competency of government. We are supposed to allocate spending at the minimum appropriate to get the job done.”
Congress will be in recess from April 29 through May 8, leading to speculation that Republicans will bring a bill to the House next week.
