Congressional Republicans, who finally have the power to reduce massive federal spending, are paralyzed over how to make cuts and could instead scale back their plan to slash taxes.
While they’ve talked about it endlessly, shrinking the growth of the federal government has been much harder for Republicans to implement in reality.
The divisions over cuts threaten their plan to pass legislation that reduces taxes while not increasing the government’s massive deficits.
“It’s exceptionally hard to make cuts,” said Rep. Jeff Van Drew, New Jersey Republican. “And it’s exceptionally easy to add on more and more into the budget.”
Mr. Van Drew, a former Democrat, is among a group of GOP moderates who are wary of making significant revisions to Medicaid, the nation’s largest entitlement program.
Republicans hoped to pay for tax cuts by slashing hundreds of billions of dollars from the program. Their plan calls for lowering the federal rate of reimbursement to the states for Medicaid and establishing a fixed amount, or cap, for beneficiaries.
Speaker Mike Johnson, facing a revolt from swing-district moderates whose support he needs to pass the tax cuts, all but tossed those Medicaid reforms out the window.
Without them, it will make it even harder for the House GOP to accomplish the $2 trillion in cuts they hoped would pay for the tax cut bill.
House Republican leaders are now weighing a less-ambitious plan to reduce federal spending cuts to $1.5 trillion over the next decade. Instead of slashing taxes by $4.5 trillion, they would have to scale tax cuts down to $4 trillion.
Party lawmakers blame the difficulties in reducing government spending on Democrats, who they accuse of lying about reforms by claiming they will lead to massive cuts in services for the neediest.
“They are just shamelessly misrepresenting what we are doing,” Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Republican, said.
Democrats in recent weeks have spent millions of dollars on ads targeting vulnerable Republican House members over the reforms.
The ads warn that Medicaid changes would strip healthcare from millions of people and cut funding from nursing homes.
Sidelined by their crushing defeat in the 2024 elections, Democrats have centered their message on opposing President Trump’s efforts to slash the size and cost of the federal government through his Department of Government Efficiency, headed by Elon Musk.
Democrats have vilified Mr. Musk and have turned their attacks on the GOP as it attempts to codify his cuts into law.
On Capitol Hill, Democrats are hammering the GOP on their plans to pay for tax cuts by reining in the massive cost of entitlements, including a proposal to increase work requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, and shift some of the cost of the program to the states.
The House Agriculture Committee hoped to slash at least $150 billion in federal spending, in part by reforming the food stamp program. But they are facing relentless criticism from Democrats.
“House Republicans are determined to jam reckless and extreme budget down the throats of the American people,” Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, New York Democrat, said. “It will enact the largest cut. To Medicaid and the largest cut to SNAP in American history. Children, families, women, veterans, older Americans, people with disabilities, and everyday Americans will be hurt.”
The GOP is staring down a late-May deadline for advancing the “big, beautiful bill,” which is intended to become the central economic achievement of Mr. Trump’s second-term agenda.
Mr. Trump wants the legislation to not only extend his 2017 tax cuts, which expire in January, but also eliminate taxes on tips, overtime and Social Security payments to seniors.
The president pledged the bill would cut more than $1 trillion in federal spending by eliminating waste and making other reforms. He promised he would not cut Medicare or Social Security and would “defend Medicaid for those great people that are in need.”
House conservatives want the bill to include at least $2 trillion in cuts, which they say would only reduce growth in spending over the next decade by a minuscule 2.3%.
With those cuts, annual spending is still expected to grow from $7 trillion to $10 trillion over the next decade, and the debt will exceed $50 trillion by 2035.
Mr. Trump aligns with conservatives’ ambitions to slash spending growth.
His 2026 budget pitches a 22.6% reduction to non-defense, discretionary spending. But his plan faces opposition from moderate Congressional Republicans.
The reductions would generate billions in savings over ten years, White House officials said, and would balance the federal budget for the first time in decades.
But many of the cuts, big and small, were quickly rejected by some GOP lawmakers on Capitol Hill, including a Trump administration plan to eliminate LIHEAP, the heating assistance program for low-income Americans.
The administration proposed scratching the $4 billion program, arguing it is rife with fraud and would no longer be needed because of Trump policies that will significantly lower energy prices.
It’s not going anywhere in the Senate.
“I’m very much opposed to cutting LIHEAP,” Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Susan Collins, Maine Republican, said.
Rep. Barry Loudermilk, Georgia Republican, said his party is focused on eliminating wasteful spending, but even those cuts have become impossible in Washington.
“This town, this whole government system, is based on the status quo, and you’re really upsetting the status quo when you start doing what the president is doing through DOGE and cutting things that have been held tightly in the past,” Mr. Loudermilk said. “There’s some discomfort with doing some of these things. But we have to do that. The biggest thing is just ripping off the Band-Aid.”
