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My fear is that readers are going to see the words “budget plan” and “study committee,” assume this is boring, and quickly click away. But don’t abandon the post just yet, because this is going somewhere.
Roughly 50 years ago, when there were still plenty of moderate and even liberal Republicans, a group of conservative lawmakers created something called the Republican Study Committee. The goal was simple: These GOP members wanted to create a Capitol Hill home exclusively for lawmakers on the right.
In the years that followed, as centrist Republicans became an endangered species, the Republican Study Committee became one of Congress’ largest caucuses — to the point that more than three-quarters of the House Republican Conference, including the entirety of the GOP leadership team, have joined the far-right contingent.
With this in mind, when the Republican Study Committee releases a budget plan, as it did this week, it represents the views and priorities of most of the House GOP and all of the conference’s leaders. It’s against this backdrop that NBC News reported that the Republican Study Committee’s newest blueprint goes after Social Security and Medicare, which in turns helps set the stage for a political fight Democrats are eager to have.
And we could certainly continue to go down this road, noting that this budget plan, if implemented, would impose a series of related disasters. The White House released an accurate summary of the GOP agenda, highlighting not only the damage the Republican budget would do to social insurance programs (so-called entitlements), but also the Affordable Care Act, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the Internal Revenue Service.
But the Republican Study Committee’s agenda — which its members have named the “Fiscal Sanity to Save America” plan — doesn’t just focus on fiscal issues. NBC News’ report added:
Apart from fiscal policy, the budget endorses a series of bills “designed to advance the cause of life,” including the Life at Conception Act, which would aggressively restrict abortion and potentially threaten in vitro fertilization, or IVF, by establishing legal protections for human beings at “the moment of fertilization.”
“The gift of life is precious and should be protected,” the Republican Study Committee’s blueprint argues, adding that the RSC “celebrates the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision,” which overturned Roe v. Wade.
In fact, this budget plan features quite a few culture-war priorities, from building a border wall to restricting LGBTQ+ rights, from ending birthright citizenship to going after the right’s understanding of critical race theory.
But despite recent election results, the Republican Study Committee appears especially eager to dramatically overhaul reproductive rights in the United States, putting the future of IVF treatments in jeopardy, banning medication abortions, banning abortions for those serving in the U.S. military, and even threatening to cut off federal funding for American universities “that partner with or host student health services that provide abortions.”
Democrats would love to make the 2024 election cycle a referendum on abortion rights. The Republican Study Committee is making that easier.
This post updates our related earlier coverage.