Igor Bobic at HuffPost:
House Republicans are making clear that they intend to seek cuts to entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare with their new majority in the 118th Congress.
Their plans to target health care programs follow demands from a group of conservatives that helped elect House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) over the weekend. Those far-right lawmakers have sought across-the-board spending cuts in order to tackle the growing national debt.
But the narrow House GOP majority ― McCarthy can afford to lose just four votes on any bill ― is far more divided on cuts to defense spending than for entitlement programs.
“I’m all for a balanced budget, but we’re not going to do it on the backs of our troops and our military,” Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.), a former Army Green Beret, said Monday during an interview on Fox Business. “If we really want to talk about the debt and spending, it’s the entitlements programs.”
As part of his list of concessions to conservatives, McCarthy reportedly agreed to cap spending for the next year at fiscal 2022 levels, which would amount to over $130 billion in cuts from last month’s $1.7 trillion government funding bill.
