House Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris, who leads a faction of fiscally conservative Republicans in the House of Representatives, is urging Republican leadership to reject Democrats’ budget demands.
Republicans are attempting to prevent a partial shutdown of the federal government by passing a continuing resolution which would roughly extend the spending levels of the Biden administration for seven weeks and buy time for the regular appropriations process.
“It’s not really different from the Biden spending levels,” Harris, R-Md., told The Daily Signal. “So I’m not sure what their excuse is for liking it back then but not liking it now. They’re just playing politics with it. They want to increase spending by one-and-a-half trillion dollars in new spending. We just can’t afford that.
The stopgap funding bill already passed through the House of Representatives on mostly partisan lines, but faces headwinds in the Senate, where Republicans need at least seven Democrat caucus votes in order to bring it to the floor.
Taking advantage of their shutdown leverage, Democrats have made a series of hefty demands, including: undoing recently passed cost-saving Medicaid reforms, hamstringing the White House’s ability to rescind certain federal funding, and extending expiring Obamacare health care premium tax credits, which were enhanced during the previous administration.
Of course, if Democrats reached any sort of new deal in the Senate, then the bill would have to come back to the House of Representatives for final approval.
Whether or not the government enters a shutdown will be decided Tuesday, Sept. 30, when the federal government runs out of appropriated funds.
On the issue of the enhanced premium tax credits that Democrats want extended immediately, Harris does not think Republicans should throw them any bone. The expiration at the end of the year of these COVID-era enhanced premium tax credits would lead to the tax break reverting back to pre-COVID levels, something Harris would welcome.
“Look, they want to continue a COVID-era insurance company giveaway scheme,” said Harris. “There’s no reason to do it. COVID is over. The insurance companies have made billions of dollars off the enhanced tax credits. It’s about time to return to the pre-COVID level of tax credits with the original [Affordable Care Act] tax credits.”
Adding to Harris’ resolve in supporting a flat-out rejection of Democrats’ demands is his confidence that the Trump administration would not attempt to weaponize a shutdown and would cut waste instead of essential services.
“Look, Russ Vought is going to keep what’s essential and he’s going to lay off non-essential workers,” he said, referring to the White House budget director who has directed agencies to eliminate jobs and programs not aligned with the administration’s goals in the event of a shutdown.
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., and Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., have pointed to the imminent Hurricane Humberto—a storm forecasted to impact the eastern United States, as a dire reason to avoid a shutdown.
But Harris, who represents a coastal district, is confident the Trump administration will keep essential response services in place in the event of a shutdown.
“FEMA, of course, will be considered essential personnel. It looks like the storm is going to avoid the coast, and again, it is not really a government shutdown,” he said. “Essential services continue. Non-essential services don’t.”
Harris spoke highly of Vought, who he believes will make sure to keep the shutdown from having painful effects on American citizens.
“I think more things will be considered essential than were when the Democrats ran the shutdowns, because they wanted to inflict pain on the American public,” Harris told The Daily Signal, adding:
Russ Vought does not want to inflict pain on the American public. [Senate Minority Leader] Chuck Schumer is the one now that wants to inflict pain on the American public. So this shutdown—and I put it in quotes—‘this shutdown’ is going to look very different.
As for what might follow the passage of a stopgap funding bill, Harris’ vision is quite simple—flattening or reducing spending across the board.
“A good outcome would be negotiating a set of appropriations bills at or slightly below, hopefully, last year’s spending level. But I think it’s going to be right at last year’s spending level.”
Harris, who has publicly entertained the idea of supporting a long-term continuing resolution if necessary, added that keeping spending flat is “the first step in a process that will eventually, hopefully, control our deficit and begin to control the increase in our federal debt.”
He concluded with a simple mantra: “Don’t increase spending as Washington always likes to do. Just keep the spending level.”
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