Top Education Department officials slam budget cuts in Republican debt ceiling proposal

Higher Ed Dive

Jeremy Bauer-Wolf

April 25, 2023

Dive Brief:

• Top U.S. Department of Education officials on Tuesday continued to slam a Republican spending proposal spearheaded by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy that would raise the federal debt ceiling but impose deep budget cuts on the agency.

• Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, who has already publicly criticized the GOP debt ceiling plan, said in a phone call with reporters Tuesday that McCarthy is showing “staggering recklessness” with his approach. Cardona said the plan, which would strike down a plan to forgive mass amounts of student loan debt, would hurt the most vulnerable students.

• President Joe Biden has already rejected the GOP blueprint and said the White House will not negotiate over it. The plan is not expected to gain traction in the Democrat-controlled Senate.

Dive Insight:

Republicans are setting up a battle over the debt ceiling in an attempt to reign in federal spending. Pundits also say it’s meant in part to force the president to come back to the negotiating table before the 2024 presidential election.

The proposal would lift the debt ceiling by $1.5 trillion or suspend it until March 2024, whichever comes first. The current national debt ceiling sits at $31.4 trillion — it was last raised in 2021.

The Republican plan doesn’t contain precise budget cuts, but would reduce discretionary spending to fiscal 2022 levels. The Biden administration has said the scheme would slash funding by 22% across the board, but since it wouldn’t touch defense spending, it would mean significant reductions for other federal agencies.

Continue Reading