House Republican leaders do not yet have a budget plan of their own, but in broad strokes, they have a relatively specific goal in mind: The new House GOP majority wants to balance the budget in 10 years while protecting Trump-era tax breaks, and without touching Medicare and Social Security. Much of the party also insists on shielding funding for the Pentagon and veterans.
A Washington Post report last week noted that Dan Meyer, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s chief of staff, has privately expressed concern that meeting such a goal “will prove difficult, if not impossible.” The article added that Meyer recently marveled at “the seeming absurdity” of the circumstances.
This might’ve been understating the case. Politico reported:
Senate Democrats are touting a new analysis from federal budget experts that illustrates what they say is the mathematical impossibility of GOP plans to balance the federal budget over 10 years, while extending Trump-era tax cuts and leaving Social Security, Medicare, defense and veterans benefits intact.
According to a Congressional Budget Office analysis released yesterday, if Republicans want to balance the budget within 10 years, without touching entitlements, military spending, or veterans care, they’d have to cut 86% of federal spending on everything else.
And by “everything else,” I’m being quite literal. To make the budget arithmetic work, Congress would have to cut 86% of federal spending on border security. And agriculture. And air-traffic control. And law enforcement. And environmental protections. And a few thousand other priorities that benefit Americans every day.
What’s more, that 86% figure is based on the assumption that Trump-era tax cuts would be allowed to lapse altogether. If Republicans intend to keep the ineffective Trump-era tax breaks in place — and we already know they do — then the budget math collapses altogether: Congress could cut 100% of “everything else,” and by the CBO’s estimates, the budget still wouldn’t balance in 10 years.
Politico’s report added that two Democratic senators — Rhode Island’s Sheldon Whitehouse, who chairs the Senate Budget Committee, and Oregon’s Ron Wyden, who chairs the Senate Finance Committee — requested the CBO report and eagerly touted the findings.
“As this analysis shows, no amount of cuts can make their math add up,” Whitehouse said in a statement. “It is a farce.” Wyden added, “These numbers show that Speaker McCarthy made impossible promises to land his job, and that’s seriously alarming with a catastrophic default getting closer every day.”
This appears to leave the House Republican leadership with a small handful of choices.
- They can give up on their unrealistic goal.
- They can keep their goal, but propose cuts to social insurance programs and the military.
- They can keep their goal, but agree to roll back ineffective Trump-era tax cuts.
I can’t wait to see which of these options GOP leaders choose.