Conservative Republicans propose $14T in cuts to balance budget

The Republican Study Committee (RSC), a conservative GOP House caucus, called Wednesday for cutting $14 trillion in spending over a decade to balance the budget and produce a surplus.

“We’ve faced a year of unprecedented spending,” the group’s leaders wrote in a letter on their proposed budget. The letter was spearheaded by RSC Chairman Jim Banks (R-Ind.).

“As you can imagine, getting our spending under control and eliminating the deficit will prove to be a herculean task,” it stated.

The group’s alternative budget proposal would virtually eliminate the deficit by 2024 and go into surplus by 2026 by making aggressive cuts to discretionary spending and mandatory programs, relative to their current projected paths.

It would cut $2.5 trillion from current Medicare projections, $3.3 trillion from other health programs including Medicaid, and lop another $3.5 trillion from other mandatory programs that largely comprise the social safety net.

Discretionary spending, which funds the government, would drop by $3.5 trillion, reducing its size as a share of the economy by a third.

The RSC budget comes just more than a week before President Biden’s full budget proposal is set for release on May 27.

In that budget, Biden is expected to lay out a fiscal plan for the country over a decade, incorporating his infrastructure and family support proposals alongside higher taxes for corporations and the wealthy.

He will also lay out his plans for mandatory spending programs such as Medicare and Social Security, some of which have limited runways in terms of funding from specialized trust funds.

Beyond the immediate fiscal year, long-term budget plans often have little to do with what policies are enacted. President Trump’s budget proposals, for example, each proposed paths to eventually balance the government’s budget, but the deficit ultimately increased in every year of his presidency.