Rep. Kevin Hern (R-OK) plans on introducing an amendment to the House’s continuing resolution bill that would further slash funding below the caps set in the Republican debt ceiling bill passed early this year.
As it becomes much clearer that the 31-day continuing resolution negotiated by members of the House Freedom Caucus and the Republican Main Street Caucus doesn’t have the votes necessary to pass, House Republicans have been huddling all day Tuesday trying to find a way to pass a stopgap funding measure.
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The current proposal cuts spending to the $1.59 trillion level set in the bipartisan debt ceiling deal signed into law by President Joe Biden in June.
But, in a closed-door meeting in Whip Tom Emmer’s (R-MN) office, Hern, the chairman of the Republican Study Committee, the largest ideological caucus in the House GOP, presented his plan, which would cut funding down to $1.471 trillion. That's the number that hard-line conservatives have called for and appropriators have already marked up the bills for this year.
This is also what House Republicans voted on earlier this year in the Limit, Save, Grow Act, which raised the debt ceiling while implementing a spending cap of $1.471 trillion for this upcoming fiscal year. The bill was never heard in the Senate.
“It's an opportunity to start out at a lower number and start moving forward as opposed to starting at the $1.590 trillion,” Hern said.
“It's the Limit, Save, Growl plus all the work that's been done by the Byron Donalds and the Dusty Johnsons of the world, Scott Perrys, I mean, they've done a lot of great work,” he continued. “We agree with that work. But policy-wise, we want to mark the defense to $886 (billion), and we want to make sure Homeland Security is plussed up because we have a travesty at the southern border that needs to be addressed.”
The Limit, Save, Grow Act passed in April with 217 votes, with four Republicans voting against the measure.
If his amendment is adopted, the continuing resolution will still have the House’s border security bill attached and the other border provisions that conservatives have called for. According to a source with knowledge of the negotiations, the reason the Freedom Caucus and Main Street set spending at $1.59 trillion was because it had the "strongest support of the conference previously."
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While it is still unclear if this will get to the 218 votes necessary to pass the House, there could be more consensus around the lower number. Rep. Bob Good (R-VA), a Freedom Caucus member, is opposed to the continuing resolution House Republicans are currently putting forward but said he would vote in favor of Hern’s amendment.
“I would support that amendment,” Good said. “What I have said is, I would support a CR at the 1.471 numbers for the month that included the border and included a commitment from the speaker to write the appropriation bills during the 30 days that it buys us at the 1.471 number.”