However, before getting into that discussion, it’s essential to understand the context in which the budget and debt ceiling battle is being fought and all that’s at stake. Should those cuts be enacted into law, the House Freedom Caucus (HFC) and Speaker McCarthy will literally be taking money out of the pockets of red-state voters and their governments. It will be interesting to see how red state governors respond to the deep cuts their most conservative congressional colleagues are proposing to make. In this case it’s about money flowing mainly into red state coffers from IRA programs. For reasons I’ll explain shortly, there are Republicans on and off the Hill who are also staunchly opposed to the conservative’s proposed hacking of the IRA.Īs with most things in Capital City, the debate it’s mostly about money. Predictably Democrats on and off Capitol Hill oppose the Speaker’s swaps proposal. In return for the proposed cuts, House Republicans will support raising the debt ceiling. In a proposed tit-for-tat deal, House Speaker McCarthy (R-CA) and members of the Freedom Caucus are looking to claw back the Inflation Reduction Act’s (IRA) climate-related provisions, e.g., tax credits and incentive payments to homeowners to install heat pumps and other energy-saving improvements. The budget battle brewing in Congress could see the US become a dead-beat debtor if the warring factions can’t come to some arrangement on raising the nation’s debt ceiling.

Broken by David H. Burton