Bureaucrats Warn of Dire Consequences If Republicans Pursue Budget at 2022 Spending Levels

Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), chairwoman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee, speaks during testimony by Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar in Washington on Feb. 26, 2020. Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images

Bureaucrats leading various government agencies are raising concerns about the potential impact of steep expenditure cuts included in a Republican-backed budget proposal.

Nearly 20 agencies, including the Departments of State, Treasury, Housing and Urban Development, Education, as well as the Social Security Administration, and several others, have written letters in recent weeks warning of the consequences of returning to 2022 spending levels for their offices next year.

The letters were sent in response to a January request from Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, for information on how freezing discretionary spending at fiscal 2022 levels will affect their agency.

The official budget plan for the House Republicans has yet to be released. Yet, the letters come as Republicans have shown support for budget limitations amid some of the largest federal budget deficits in history that they say future generations can’t afford, with hardliners pressing to freeze discretionary spending in fiscal 2024 at the 2022 level while maintaining defense funding at present levels.

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“I have received responses to most of my letters to cabinet secretaries and senior leaders outlining the dangers posed to the American people if we cut federal spending back to the 2022 level, and the numbers could not be clearer,” ranking member DeLauro said in her press release.

“Those that seek to cut essential programs by at least 22 percent—and those that are pushing even more drastic cuts of 30 percent or more—would cause irreparable damage to our communities by gutting the programs every single American relies on. Those proposals are unrealistic, unsustainable, and unconscionable.”

According to a letter from Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack’s office, maintaining funding at fiscal 2022 levels would force state WIC (Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children) programs to “reduce participation and establish waiting lists using the priority system.” The letter warned that nearly 250,000 monthly participants would not receive benefits.

Funding at fiscal 2022 levels for Head Start, a program for low-income families with preschool children, would “eliminate at least 170,000 slots for children,” according to Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra. Chief of the Social Security Administration Kilolo Kijakazi said his organization could lose “over 5,000 employees who are essential to processing retirement claims.”

Dropping funding for 2024 to 2022 levels, according to a letter from representatives of the Department of State and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), “would call into question the United States’ foreign policy, national security, and development leadership and jeopardize U.S. national security.”

A conservative budget proposal also drew fire from the White House, which claimed that the budget plan proposed by the conservative House Freedom Caucus (HFC) would make the southern border less secure by removing funds for Customs and Border Protection (CBP) employees and limiting the capacity to fight drug trafficking.

HFC Chairman Scott Perry (R-Pa.) called the White House’s response to their plan “Just more pearl-clutching from a president whose statements drift daily toward 1984 instead of credible policy in 2023.”

“Fear and smear isn’t a pillar of policy—it’s propaganda,” Perry said in a statement to The Epoch Times.

“This latest tactic is a disgusting attempt to distract, deceive, and deny his record-setting incompetence in surrendering operational control of our border to drug cartels, sinking our economy, and ushering in debt and bank crises that are crushing Americans.”