Freedom Caucus and Spending Cuts

Federal spending will rise more than 7 percent this year and annual deficits will soon top $1 trillion. The government ’s rising debt could generate a major financial and economic crisis. Members of Congress know about these problems and may feel uncomfortable about loading $22 trillion of debt onto young people.But Congress is not taking any action to address overspending and debt. The Republican president rarely addresses the issue and most congressional Republicans follow his lead. As for Democrats, they seem consumed by their political battles with the president and do not focus on fiscal restraint.What about the Freedom Caucus? These are 32 House Republicans whose raison d ’etre is cutting the government. If anyone in Congress is focused on the deficit problem and pushing spending cuts, it should be these folks.My intern, David Titus, and I examined the congressional websites of Freedom Caucus members hoping to find discussions about deficits and proposals for cuts. But we found little about those topics on member websites. We looked through the “issues” and “about” parts of member websites and we examined member press releases back to January 2017.Some Freedom Caucus members are leaders of government restraint in areas such as foreign policy and civil liberties. But on spending cuts, most members have little to say, at least on their official websites.The table below tallies the number of different programs Freedom Caucus members identify to cut or reform on...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs