The White House is criticizing the House Freedom Caucus' (HFC) proposed budget, stating it would be a "five-alarm fire for families."
The Biden administration in a March 20 news release calls the HFC proposal "a disaster for families in at least five key ways: endangering public safety, raising costs for families, shipping manufacturing jobs overseas and undermining American workers, weakening national security, and hurting seniors."
"Last week, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) confirmed that Congressional Republicans’ budget math doesn’t add up," the statement reports." CBO found that—in order to meet Congressional Republicans’ stated commitment to balancing the budget in 10 years without raising taxes on the wealthy or corporations, and without cutting Social Security, Medicare, defense, and some veterans’ benefits—Congressional Republicans would need to eliminate everything in the rest of the Federal budget."
The White House reports that the HFC's budget proposal would eliminate funding for more than 2,000 Customs and Border Protection agents, 11,000 FBI personnel and 190 agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, leading to decreased border security, defunded police departments and cutting Federal support to 60 local law enforcement agencies.
Additionally, the proposal would shut down services at 125 air-traffic control towers, compromising safety at one-third of all US airports and increasing wait times at TSA security checkpoints by an average of 30 minutes, according to the report. Cuts to rail-safety measures would mean 11,000 fewer safety inspections days in 2024 and 30,000 fewer miles of track inspected per year, "enough track to cross the United States nearly 10 times," the White House states in the release. "Since the Norfolk Southern train derailment, bipartisan Senators have called for more rail inspections, not fewer."
The White House states the HFC's proposed budget is "in sharp contrast" with President Biden's budget, "which invests in America, lowers costs for families, protects and strengthens Medicare and Social Security, and reduces the deficit by $3 trillion over 10 years, while ensuring no one making less than $400,000 per year pays a penny more in new taxes."
Biden's 2024 budget invests $76.1 billion in repairing and upgrading highways and bridges, and building a national network of electric vehicle chargers. It also prioritizes ensuring a safe and efficient passenger and freight rail network, advancing significant transportation projects, and addressing the roadway and pedestrian safety crisis. The budget includes over $1.3 billion for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to reduce roadway fatalities and injuries, and $16.5 billion for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to tackle 21st-century aviation challenges.
Department of Transportation Sec. Pete Buttigieg supported the White House stance on the HFC budget.
"We disagree with these House Republicans' budget proposals that would cut Air Traffic Control resources and railroad safety inspections," Buttigieg stated in a March 20 post to Twitter. "Instead, let's fully support railroad and aviation safety - which is exactly what the President's budget will do."
