GOP still vague on spending cut plans

WASHINGTON – House Speaker Kevin Mccarthy left his first White House visit with confidence that he and President Joe Biden could negotiate a spending deal, but the real test may come in negotiations with his own Republican conference.

Mccarthy, who had to bargain with hardline conservatives to win his speaker bid after 15 rounds of voting, leads a fractious caucus where some members are willing to gamble with the nation’s credit score and the global economy to try to get the federal spending cuts they want.

But what those cuts are, nobody seems to know. “Their writ large approach seems to be take the hostage first and then they’ll figure out later what they want,” Rep. Brendan Boyle, D-PA., ranking member of the House Budget Committee, told USA TODAY.

Mccarthy and other Republican leaders have said cuts to Social Security and Medicare should be off the table in debt limit and spending negotiations, a pivot from their midterm campaigns when they said everything was on the table.

House GOP Whip Tom Emmer said he expected Mccarthy would assure Biden Wednesday the country would not default on its debt and Social Security and Medicare wouldn’t be part of the negotiations.

The president and Mccarthy getting together in the White House was the “responsible” thing to do and would produce a “more sensible result,” Emmer told USA TODAY.

Though Republicans have tried to reassure voters that they will not send the U.S. economy careening toward collapse, they have been vague about how they will cut spending to fiscal year 2022 levels without touching entitlements. When asked what spending cuts the House GOP wants, or what might pass the chamber, Emmer deflected and focused on Mccarthy’s meeting with Biden as a positive sign the two could negotiate.

Mccarthy didn’t give Biden specific spending cuts or levels of spending cuts the House GOP would accept, he told reporters at the Capitol Wednesday night after their meeting.

After facing questions about spending cuts, Emmer said in a statement Wednesday night, “Democrats and the media want to fearmonger about spending cuts. House Republicans are talking about spending reforms.”

Some of the conservative think tanks influencing government spending, such as the Heritage Foundation and the Center for Renewing America, have proposed billions worth of cuts each to defense, Housing and Urban Development, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Health and Human Services.