The House Freedom Caucus has seemingly ruled out support for Speaker Paul Ryan's border tax, which Ryan wanted to use to pay for his package of tax cuts for the rich (spoiler: this wouldn't work), but the Batshit Caucus has a different idea.
Freedumb Caucus chairman Mark Meadows (R-NC) says we should pay for tax cuts for the rich, otherwise known as "tax reform," by cutting food and assistance for needy families.
House Freedom Caucus members will push for changes to two major welfare programs — food stamps and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families — as part of tax reform legislation, the group's chairman told POLITICO. [...]
Meadows said adding in changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or food stamps, and TANF would provide another $400 billion over 10 years, Meadows said.
Setting aside the grotesque immorality of cutting these programs to finance tax cuts for the rich, this wouldn't even cover the cost of the massive tax cuts they're considering.
Ryan hoped his border tax would generate $1 trillion in revenue over 10 years (it wouldn't) to cover the cost of his tax cuts, but the Freedom Caucus is calling for $400 billion in spending cuts or less than half of what Paul Ryan hoped for.
So, in addition to likely wrecking the economy, the cuts they're calling for combined with the astronomical cost of their tax cuts would explode the federal deficit.
I'm not necessarily saying they won't do it, but covering the cost of their tax cuts would require cuts so deep the economy wouldn't be recognizable when they're finished. Passing tax cuts now and worrying about the deficit later, like when the next Democratic president is elected, remains the most likely scenario. They've done it before.