Andy Harris, the chair of the House Freedom Caucus (HFC), has issued a stark warning to the Senate GOP leadership.
He believes that their attempt to force House conservatives to accept the Senate's version of President Donald Trump's bill is a gamble that is destined to fail.
Harris, who heads the conservative wing of the House Republican Conference, expressed his readiness to torpedo the Senate's proposal in a recent interview with the Daily Caller News Foundation.
His primary concern is that the Senate's budget package would inflate budget deficits while diminishing the spending cuts passed by the House. Harris is not alone in his opposition to the current Senate bill, and he anticipates its failure in the House if Speaker Mike Johnson attempts to bring the Senate proposal to the floor.
"They will lose the bet," Harris confidently told the DCNF, indicating his refusal to succumb to pressure to support the current Senate bill. Harris was the sole GOP lawmaker to vote "present" on the House-passed bill, criticizing its inability to significantly reduce deficit spending and eliminate "waste, fraud and abuse" in Medicaid.
Harris's firm stance against Senate modifications that undermine House-passed reforms or escalate deficit spending comes at a critical time. Senate Majority John Thune is striving to pass his chamber's budget bill by week's end.
However, a diverse group of dissenters threatens to postpone the Senate bill's passage, with some fiscal conservatives arguing that the current proposal does not go far enough in cutting spending. President Trump has set a July 4 deadline for his landmark bill, which encompasses large portions of his legislative agenda, but it remains uncertain whether Congress will meet this deadline.
According to the Conservative Daily News, the House must endorse the Senate bill before Trump can sign it into law. Harris expressed his dissatisfaction with the Senate proposal's failure to comply with the House budget framework, which necessitates that additional tax cuts be balanced with equivalent spending reductions. This discrepancy renders the bill unacceptable in his view.
"It's so far away from the [House] budget framework that I can't support it," Harris stated. "I think it's broadly accepted in the House that if that measure comes over as it is currently proposed, it will fail."
Harris estimates that the current Senate proposal, which is still under development, could inflate the deficit by $1 trillion over a decade. The Maryland Republican suggested that the Senate GOP conference must identify another $1 trillion in spending cuts to counterbalance the deficit impact of their current proposal to secure his vote.
Harris believes the most straightforward solution would be to implement further reforms to Medicaid. Despite Senate Republicans making more drastic policy changes to the entitlement program than the House-passed version, Harris is advocating for even more aggressive action. He proposed reducing the Federal Medical Assistance Percentage (FMAP) for the Obamacare expansion population, a move that GOP moderates have so far resisted.
"They're going to have to make decisions they either get serious about eliminating all the waste, fraud and abuse in Medicaid by dealing with the FMAP discrepancy between young, healthy people and the disabled, elderly, pregnant and children who the program was designed for or they're going to have to scale back some of their tax relief," Harris said.
Notably, the federal government pays 90% of coverage costs for able-bodied adults covered under Medicaid expansion, while contributing a significantly lower percentage for traditional enrollees such as pregnant women and the disabled the entitlement program was originally intended to serve.
Harris is also urging the Senate to follow President Trump's example by pledging to immediately abolish green energy tax breaks enacted under former President Joe Biden.
"I HATE 'GREEN TAX CREDITS' IN THE GREAT, BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL," the president wrote in all capital letters on the social platform Truth Social Saturday. "They are largely a giant SCAM."
"[It] puts us in a better state of play," Harris told the DCNF, indicating his support for the president's stance.
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