The moment for us to act quickly and loudly has arrived. It’s time for us to raise an immediate ruckus with members of our city and region’s congressional delegation who belong to the House Republican Majority:

• Long Island – Nick LaLota (NY-1), Andrew Garbarino (NY-2), George Santos (NY-3), Anthony D’Esposito (NY-4)
• NYC – George Santos (NY-3), Nicole Malliotakis (NY-11)
• Hudson Valley – Mike Lawler (NY-17)

Last week, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy unveiled his draconian “Limit, Save, Grow Act” to address impending federal debt default that is anticipated to occur sometime in June or July. He wants to pass his bill this week.

Here’s what his bill will do:

• Lift federal debt limits only until March 31, 2024 or by $1.5 trillion (whichever comes first.)
• Slash federal spending back to FY 2022 levels (thereby negating last December’s FY 2023 bipartisan budget deal), and then cap the annual growth rate for discretionary programs (that are subject to the annual appropriations process) at 1% per year for the next decade (through FY 2033.)  Defense and VA spending would be exempted.
• This combination of slash-cap-exempt would cause a whopping 59% cut in spending for everything else over the decade.  The affected programs would cover everything except “mandatory programs”, such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP (formerly, Food Stamps), TANF (welfare.)  (However, funding for the agencies that administer these programs would be cut.)
• Add work requirements for Medicaid, SNAP, and TANF, just to just throw people off these programs.
• Take back still-being-spent pandemic funds provided to states.
• Cancel student loan forgiveness programs.
• Cancel new funding for the IRS to audit wealthy tax cheats.
• Curtail the federal government’s ability to regulate many industries.
• Repeal green energy tax credits and subsidies offered under the new Inflation Reduction Act law.
• Ignore what causes climate change and boost domestic fossil fuel development and use instead.

Bad bonuses: This bill would also be combined with other legislative promises to:

• Continue the Trump tax cuts for the wealthy in perpetuity. That would add over $3 trillion more to the federal debt over the next decade, thereby wiping out any alleged savings from McCarthy’s bill.
• Repeal the Medicare Rx drug price negotiation provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act, costing a loss of another $316 billion in savings from under that law.

Speaker McCarthy wants the House to vote on his bill before the end of this week IF he can summon up enough votes from his colleagues. Our job RIGHT NOW is to stop that from happening – we must prevent him from getting the votes he needs by causing a public uproar. If we succeed, we will dramatically weaken him and his majority in trying to do similar things in the future.

What to do NOW:

• Inform your networks about this bill and the fast timeline to try to pass it.
• Mobilize your networks to bombard the Capitol Hill and local district offices of these members of Congress (see list above) with messages to reject Speaker McCarthy’s debt default bill. Contact them by phone (Capitol switchboard: 202-224-3121) and on social media platforms to express your opinion.
• Use the webpages of these Reps. on the House website to write them an email and find out their local phone numbers.

Thanks much for stepping up to the plate right away at the crucial moment!

PS — Want more detail and background? Check out this analysis from our friends at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.