The far-right House Freedom Caucus is pressing GOP leaders to spend the next several weeks trying to tie Democrats’ hands in the next Congress.
The conservative group wants to freeze spending at current levels for the remainder of the fiscal year and use a filibuster-proof budget reconciliation bill to provide more funding for defense modernization, “to stop Democrats from using it to leverage for expansion of the welfare state.”
The Freedom Caucus said any party-line reconciliation package should also contain additional tax relief for families, an expansion of Health Savings Accounts and additional policies to reduce the cost of healthcare — paid for with at least $1 trillion in spending reductions, any extra of which can be used to reduce the deficit.
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The group’s board detailed its priorities for the lame-duck session of Congress in a letter sent to House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune on Monday.
As a Dec. 11 government funding deadline approaches, Republicans must “oppose a year-end omnibus filled with poison pills” and freeze spending at current levels, the Freedom Caucus said.
Congress should instead pass appropriations bills without divisive policy riders or a continuing resolution to extend existing funding levels and policies, the group said.
In particular, the Freedom Caucus wants Republicans to resist Democrats’ attempts to constrain the Trump administration’s ability to eliminate wasteful government spending.
The group said the outgoing GOP Congress should only reauthorize the farm and highway bills and other expiring programs “if they are fiscally responsible and reduce the prices of food and consumer goods, like vehicles, while protecting the privacy rights of Americans by ending surveillance technology mandates or funding.”
Republicans should pass other top priorities, such as codifying President Trump’s border policies and requiring voter ID in federal elections, the Freedom Caucus said.
“We have an enormous amount of unfinished business to preserve and protect the Republic from an incoming majority party hell-bent on radically changing it,” the group’s board said in the letter to GOP leaders. “We must deny them every legislative leverage point possible.”
One of the Freedom Caucus’ suggestions, passing a stock trading ban that applies to all three branches of government, is also a priority for Democrats.
The group said the ban should apply to the president and his family, which was a Democratic demand House Republicans declined to meet when taking up a lighter-touch version of a stock trading ban earlier this year.
The Freedom Caucus also wants Congress to “pass a robust permitting bill to expand American energy dominance and drive down the price of fuel and electricity for families.”
The Senate is considering a bipartisan permitting overhaul this week.
Congress has only five weeks of legislative session scheduled between now and the end of the year.
The Freedom Caucus said lawmakers should not leave town until Republicans accomplish the objectives laid out in their letter.
“Every one of us — including those leaving Congress on January 3rd — should be committed to finishing the job,” they said.
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