The House GOP Is Fighting With Itself Over Having A Budget Fight With Joe Biden

The first salvo in House Republicans’ next budget fight has already been fired. But instead of Democrats being the target, the shot was across the bow of fellow Republicans.

Ahead of President Joe Biden’s release of his own budget plan on Monday, the GOP-controlled House Budget Committee passed a budget blueprint for 2025 on Thursday. The plan, essentially an outline of annual spending, revenue and deficit totals through 2034 but almost entirely nonbinding, was approved on a party-line 19-to-15 vote.

The ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus and House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) want to pass their budget through the full House ― something neither party has done in an election year since 2014, when John Boehner was still the House speaker and the first “Guardians of the Galaxy” movie was the box office champion.

Their plan, however, is likely to encounter resistance from vulnerable GOP House members, who will see little political upside and tons of risk from passing a meaningless document filled with potential vulnerabilities.

“Is that right?” Arrington asked when told how long it had been.

“Remember, my budget’s called ‘Reverse the Curse,’ so we’re going to reverse the curse on that,” he said.

Whether Republicans choose to pick a fight or not, the two documents present starkly different futures for the country: Biden would propose increasing taxes on the wealthy to pay for universal pre-kindergarten, temporarily reinstate the $300-per-month child tax credit, provide 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave, and create a tax break for first-time home buyers. It would trim $3 trillion off the national debt in the next decade.

The House budget would instead make major but unspecified cuts to