Republican lawmakers have included elimination of $900 million in funding for "Obamacare administrative costs" in a Spending Reduction Act bill draft.
Leaders of the Republican Study Committee, the study committee's budget and spending task force, and the Senate Steering Committee say the proposed spending reduction bill could cut overall federal spending by $2.5 trillion over a 10-year period.
Top supporters of the draft – Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio; Rep. Scott Garrett, R-N.J.;
and Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C. – noted that the national debt has grown to $14 trillion, from $8.6 trillion 4 years ago.
"This bill represents the first step in the process, not the last," Garrett says in a statement. "To achieve long-term fiscal stability, we must finish the race by making the tough decisions Congress has put off for far too long."
In addition to cutting federal funding for administering implementation of "Obamacare" – the legislative package that includes the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) – backers of the proposal hope to:
- Save $2.3 trillion over 10 years by eliminating automatic increases for inflation for future discretionary appropriations and holding the non-defense portion of the discretionary budget at 2006 levels through 2021.
- Eliminate $45 billion in remaining "economic stimulus" funding.
- Cut about $16 billion in funding for a Medicaid "federal medical assistance percentage" increase.
- Eliminate all federal funding for entities such as Amtrak, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Legal Services Corp. and the National Endowment for the Arts.
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