GOP’s budget strategy: Delay, deflect, do nothing

Republican leaders have repeatedly promised to “fight the next time” — a vow they’ve made and broken since the Tea Party era, even when they controlled all three branches of government.

Despite holding leverage at the start of each Congress, Republicans — including Donald Trump — have shown a persistent fear of government shutdowns. They begin with numerous opportunities to push their campaign promises by attaching them to must-pass appropriation bills, debt ceiling increases, and reauthorization measures. Yet as deadlines approach, they repeatedly cave, funding left-wing priorities while assuring their base that they’ll stand firm in the next round. This pattern has played out consistently since 2011.

Executive actions seem to be the only option left for cutting spending.

As a result, every major budget bill passed during recent GOP trifectas has relied more on Democratic support than Republican. Now, despite a historic mandate, it appears that Republicans are poised to repeat the cycle yet again. Even the Freedom Caucus seems ready to fall in line, following Trump’s directive of “no dissent.”

After the Supreme Court upheld a lower-court ruling requiring Trump to continue some USAID funding, the Freedom Caucus declared it would oppose any bill that fails to codify DOGE cuts. Recognizing that the courts would likely overturn any significant executive cuts, the House Freedom Caucus and nine GOP senators released a letter stating, “No DOGE, no deal.”

Minutes later, Trump announced his support for a continuing resolution to fund the government for the next six months at the same level as Biden’s budget — a level Republicans had previously condemned as a driver of inflation.

Instead of pressuring lukewarm Republicans, Trump silenced the Freedom Caucus in a way no one else could. Now, the caucus is defending the delay on spending cuts, claiming it gives the DOGE time to identify savings. But even if significant savings could be found outside the military, veterans’ benefits, and entitlements — it cannot — the courts have made it clear that they will not allow broad spending cuts enacted solely through the executive branch.

Republicans added more than $200 billion to Biden’s budget levels in December, claiming it was a temporary move until March, when Trump could influence the fiscal year 2025 budget. Yet here we are, still funding Biden’s spending levels and policies, with Republicans promising that “next time” will be the real fight.

Why will next time be different?

But it won’t be. The same fear of a government shutdown persists and will likely intensify during a recession. Either Republicans are willing to risk a shutdown for spending cuts, or they’re not. Either Trump understands that he has a louder megaphone than Democrats to make the case for cuts, or he doesn’t.

As history shows, leverage doesn’t increase the farther we get from an election — it diminishes. Without exception.

We can’t repeat the mistakes of Trump’s last term, when good executive policies didn’t last because Trump himself blocked conservatives from codifying them in the budget. The pattern of delaying spending cuts was exhausting. From April 2017 to March 2018, we heard promises of “next time” — only for Trump to sign an omnibus bill that increased spending on everything he had vowed to cut, followed by another round of the same the next fiscal year after he said “never again.” Every must-pass bill during that period passed with more Democratic votes than Republican ones.

Not like a spending freeze

Republicans’ plan to erase the automatic 1% spending cuts is a blatant betrayal. These cuts would have taken effect automatically if Congress did nothing. Back in June 2023, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) handed Joe Biden a clean debt limit suspension, leading to $4.8 trillion in new debt in just 18 months — without a recession or a war. The one upside of that deal was a provision that would trigger a 1% across-the-board spending cut if Congress failed to pass all 12 appropriations bills by the start of the next calendar year.

So what happened to that agreement?

After backfilling those cuts in a deal last year, House Republicans now argue that Section 102 of the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 only triggers the 1% cuts if they fail to fund the government for the rest of the year. Even though they’re pushing a continuing resolution instead of a full appropriations bill, they claim that as long as the CR funds the government through year’s end, the sequestration won’t apply.

Johnson’s betrayal last year was bad enough, but this year’s maneuver is even worse. Their excuse — fear of defense cuts — no longer holds water, since they plan to backfill more mandatory defense spending through budget reconciliation.

The reality is clear: This isn’t about timing or hoping for a better budget fight later in the year. Not with their political capital waning and the economy possibly entering a recession. Republicans have no intention of using their control to pass meaningful spending cuts in a budget bill. Period.

Time for a showdown

Executive actions seem to be the only option left for cutting spending. Defenders of the status quo dismiss concerns by suggesting that Trump will refuse to spend excess funds and will impound undesirable accounts and programs. The problem is clear: Courts have already ordered him to spend $2 billion in USAID funding. It’s unrealistic to expect the courts to support defunding entire agencies or devolving the Department of Education to the states, especially after Congress re-funds them in response to Trump’s initial signals.

This leads us to the last tool: a rescissions package. Under the Budget Control Act of 1974, the president can propose a list of expenditures to rescind, triggering a privileged motion in Congress that can pass without a filibuster. The catch? When rescissions are separate from “must-pass” bills, many weak-kneed Republicans will vote them down, even without Democratic help. Even USAID, a seemingly obvious target for cuts, has several defenders in Congress, including Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker (R-Miss.). In fact, RINOs blocked a rescissions package from Trump in 2019.

The only way for rescissions to work is for Trump to apply pressure. He must publicly confront the RINOs with the same intensity he reserves for Freedom Caucus members who dissent from the right. The problem is that Trump has never shown a willingness to confront those who oppose him from the left.

Maybe he will — next time.