McCarthy aims for 8% spending cut and border wall to avoid government shutdown

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has proposed a plan to congressional Republicans to avoid a government shutdown that would reduce overall spending by 1% from current levels for 31 days.

Bloomberg reports that the speaker wants a total 8% cut in state agency spending and a resumption of border wall construction.

McCarthy discussed the plan with Republicans in a conference call Sunday evening. He told them they should be prepared to stay this weekend to pass a stopgap measure, called a continuing resolution, that would keep government offices open beyond the Sept. 30 deadline. But many are already preparing for the heavy political fallout of a federal lockdown.

A handful of Republicans took to X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, shortly after Sunday’s call to criticize even the package of spending cuts and border measures as woefully insufficient.

The plan includes a requirement to reduce migrants’ ability to seek asylum in the United States, which is unlikely to pass the Democratic-majority Senate.

The measure does not contain emergency war funds for Ukraine or disaster aid, including relief for victims of wildfires in Maui and a hurricane in Florida requested by the Biden administration.

A vote on the one-month funding bill is scheduled for Thursday. It was negotiated between the House Freedom Caucus and a group known as the Main Street Caucus.

Heritage Action interim executive director Ryan Walker released a statement calling the short-term continuing resolution “an important step in the right direction.”

“The near-term spending deal proposed by members of the House Freedom Caucus and Main Street Caucus is an important step in the fight to secure the border and restore fiscal health to Washington. Combining a significant 8% reduction in non-defense discretionary spending “With nearly every provision of the House-passed HR 2 border security package, this deal scores major policy victories while giving conservatives the best possible negotiating position for long-term spending cuts and reforms,” ​​the statement said.

“There are quite a few people opposed to it right now,” said Rep. Kevin Hern (R-OK), head of the Republican Study Committee, the largest conservative faction in the House, adding that he was still studying the proposal and that a lot of work was going on “behind the scenes” to obtain the votes necessary for its adoption.

“I want to make sure we don’t close,” McCarthy said on Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures. “I don’t think this is a victory for the American public and I really believe it will weaken our position if we close.”

He told reporters Monday that Republicans were still putting forward “a lot of good ideas.”

President says Hunter Biden will be subpoenaed

McCarthy also said House Republicans would subpoena Hunter Biden at some point, when the time is right.

He told Fox they were following the facts and “it looks like a culture of corruption” in the Biden family.

“I think we should have the bank records to actually know where the money went, so you know the questions to ask Hunter Biden. To just subpoena Hunter Biden because you want to raise money, or you want to do something…it’s not like that. we’re going to investigate,” McCarthy said.

“I think we are showing the American public how we respect the Constitution. An impeachment inquiry is simply the ability that gives Congress the strength to get the answers to the questions. All of this information that we have now found, we would not have “I never knew. It wasn’t the Republicans who got the majority,” he told Fox News.

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