After House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) made headlines with his speech at the New York Stock Exchange on Monday about the debt ceiling and budget outlook, he returned to Washington to get the Republican conference coalesced behind a sweeping bill called the Limit, Save, Grow Act of 2023.  

Introduced Wednesday by House Budget Committee Chairman Jody Arrington (R-TX), the House bill proposes to increase the debt ceiling by $1.5 trillion or until March 31, 2024, whichever comes first, reduce the deficit by $4.5 trillion over 10 years, and limit growth to 1% per year.  In exchange for the extension of the debt ceiling, the bill proposes to drastically cut spending this fiscal year, set 10-year discretionary spending caps, prohibit the implementation of the Administration’s student loan forgiveness and income driven repayment proposals, and roll back other priorities of the President.

All year President Biden has said that he would not discuss or negotiate on the debt ceiling until the House proposed a budget showing the approach they intended to pursue. The introduction of this bill marks the next move toward bringing the two sides closer to a discussion on the debt ceiling and the overall budget framework for the year. 

While the bill does not propose cuts to specific discretionary programs, if enacted it would severely shrink the total amount available for appropriated funding this year and for a decade to come. Before the release of the legislation, Republicans had already talked about protecting defense and veterans’ funding from cuts, which means deeper cuts could be forced on domestic funding areas like education. This means gaining increases in the federal student aid programs will be much harder as they will compete directly with other education programs and health research programs. Democrats in the House have been poised to blast the proposed cuts since they were first mentioned as part of the speakership negotiations in January.