House Republicans unveiled their budget proposal for next year on Tuesday, setting up a certain showdown both with President Barack Obama and members of their own party in the Senate.
The proposal cuts $5.5 trillion in government spending over the next decade and balances the budget in nine years.
But it faces an almost certain veto from President Barack Obama, if it even gets that far; an unlikely prospect as Democrats universally panned it.
“It’s not a budget that reflects the future. It’s not a budget that reflects growth. It’s not a budget that is going to help ensure that middle-class families are able to maintain security and stability and that people who are trying to get into the middle class are going to have the rungs on the ladder to get into the middle class,” Obama told reporters Tuesday.
Even Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee who typically stays silent on controversial policy issues, weighed in, tweeting her opposition to the proposal on Tuesday night.
The document is more an outline of policy priorities than an actual blueprint for spending. But Republicans are facing added pressure to pass it as they seek to prove they can govern, now that they control the Senate in addition to the House.
In order for that to happen, they will have to hold together their own caucus to pass the bill, and House Budget Committee Chairman Tom Price’s blueprint reflects attempts to satisfy multiple GOP constituencies that are often at odds.
Defense hawks within the party want an increase in defense spending; meanwhile, conservatives want to see more fiscal restraint from their party, and have demanded the budget not raise spending caps imposed by a 2011 budget agreement.
The proposal does both.
Senate Republicans will release their own proposal Wednesday, and both budget committees are expected to consider the bills on Wednesday and Thursday of this week. A final vote on an overall budget agreement is expected before Congress leaves for Easter recess at the end of next week.
Here’s a look at the House budget by the numbers:
The timeline
9 years: That’s how long the proposal takes to balance the budget. That’s actually one year faster than the GOP’s previous budget proposal, a shorter timeline that’s meant to win over conservatives who want to see more fiscal restrain from the GOP. Price’s proposal predicts a budget surplus by 2026.
July 15: The deadline for the 13 House committees to submit bills to the House Budget Committee making the cuts necessary to hit the new reduced totals.
What it cuts
$759 billion: The reduction in non-defense spending the Price proposal includes over the next decade.
$913 billion: That’s how much the proposal will save by turning Medicaid into a block grant program, which would provide grants to the states that could then decide how to allocate the funds on their own.
$150 billion: The proposal saves the government about that much by turning Medicare into what the GOP calls a “premium support system,” which would provide future retirees — anyone 56 years or younger — vouchers to purchase insurance from private companies.
$1 trillion: The amount the proposal would save by cutting other “mandatory” spending, outside of health and retirement programs. That includes cuts to Pell grants for college students, and a proposal to reconfigure the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or food stamps, turning it into a fund that would give states full control over their own programs.
$2 trillion: Price says that’s the amount the government will save by completely getting rid of Obamacare.
What it adds
$387 billion: That’s the amount the proposal adds to defense spending over the next decade.
$523 billion: The amount allocated to fund the Pentagon for the 2017 fiscal year, which is actually lower than the $566 billion allocated for defense in the GOP’s last budget blueprint. But Price’s budget does attempt to satisfy hawks’ demands for higher defense spending.
$90 billion: That’s how much the proposal adds to the Defense Department’s Overseas Contingency Operations fund, which it’s used to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. While the budget frames that as an addition in defense spending — made possible because that fund falls outside the jurisdiction of sequestration spending caps — Senate Republicans remain skeptical, with Sen. John McCain calling it a “gimmick.”