House Budget Chair Jodey Arrington released a long-awaited budget on Tuesday that proposes fiscal goals for the next decade. Meanwhile, his party is failing to coalesce around any kind of plan to even keep the government open.
The details: Arrington’s (R-Texas) budget resolution, which is slated for a committee markup Wednesday morning, aims for $4.6 trillion in discretionary savings over the next decade. It would roll back funding for the coming fiscal year to fiscal 2022 levels and cap spending growth at 1 percent annually after that, mirroring levels House Republicans backed earlier this year as their opening offer to lift the debt ceiling.
The proposal aims to reduce the deficit by $16.3 trillion over a decade, yielding a $130 billion surplus at the end of the 10-year window through a combination of discretionary savings, mandatory savings and economic growth. It proposes a bipartisan commission to tackle the federal debt, as well as a number of major GOP policy changes and a dismantling of the mammoth health care, tax and climate legislation, known as the Inflation Reduction Act, which Democrats passed last year.
Key context: The GOP budget comes as House Republicans struggle to unite around a plan to fund the government with a fast-approaching shutdown deadline at the end of the month. Finalizing the fiscal blueprint represents a small win for Arrington, who Speaker Kevin McCarthy sidelined earlier this year during negotiations over the debt ceiling.
Arrington’s outlook: The Budget Committee chair said the goals outlined in the plan have the support of GOP leaders, as well as some of McCarthy’s biggest antagonists, and that he thinks the speaker “supports it getting all the way to the floor.”
Arrington said he is marking up a budget now, amid GOP infighting over government funding, to encourage debate about what “a more sustainable fiscal future looks like.”
“Our muscle, as Republicans, for fiscal responsibility has atrophied over the years. And we’re trying to rebuild that,” he said. “And so it’s like going back into the weight room when you haven’t been there in a long time. … And then all of a sudden, you get stronger, you get more confident, and then you can do some of the bigger things.”
