Leaders of the most conservative bloc in the House Republican Conference are backing leadership’s plan to increase the debt ceiling for three months, even though the increase has no concrete spending cuts attached to it.
In exchange, conservatives have won assurances that the 2014 House budget will contain deeper spending cuts than the 2013 budget.
They also have been assured that discretionary cuts accomplished through sequestration in fiscal 2013 will not be replaced by either mandatory spending cuts or tax increases. These cuts hit defense and non-defense spending, so the most likely outcome will be for the GOP to push defense cuts into the domestic spending category.
Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.), the head of the Republican Study Committee (RSC), joined past chairmen Reps. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Tom Price (R-Ga.) in issuing a statement in support of the three-month increase.
“The first step to halting Washington’s spending addiction is passing a budget that cuts spending. The House has passed such a budget, and will again. For the past four years, the United States Senate has refused to pass a budget at all, failing the American people in the process. That practice has to end this year,” the statement reads.
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