House Republicans reportedly pledged to cut programs funded by annual appropriations in 2024 back to their 2022 levels as part of the deal to elect Rep. McCarthy as Speaker — a pledge made more salient by House Republicans’ calls for deep spending cuts as their price for agreeing to raise the debt limit. There are no details to know how such a cut to 2024 appropriations would be implemented. But the required cuts to important domestic needs would be deep under any likely scenario that meets their pledge, and would hit programs still feeling the after-effects of a decade of austerity.
In this short analysis, we show the likely implications of the House Republicans’ pledge under a few different scenarios. To return total funding for all defense and non-defense programs funded through annual appropriations to their 2022 levels would, for example, require cutting these appropriations below their 2023 enacted level by roughly 8 percent on average. To the extent that certain programs are exempted from these cuts, as some Republicans have indicated they will seek to do, other programs would need to be cut more deeply. For instance, fully funding veterans’ medical care and shielding defense from cuts (but still freezing it at its 2023 level) would mean an average cut of 23 percent to other non-defense programs to achieve the House Republican goal of lowering total funding for appropriations to the 2022 level.
The non-defense programs under threat touch a wide array of public services that the federal government provides and that people and communities depend on.
The non-defense programs under threat touch a wide array of public services that the federal government provides and that people and communities depend on, including public health; food safety inspections; air traffic control operations; the administration of Medicare and Social Security; housing and other assistance for families with low incomes; education and job training; and scientific and medical research, to name just a few.
[1]
Moreover, many of these programs are still feeling the effects of austerity imposed largely by the 2011 Budget Control Act.
[2] Even with a recent boost in 2023, funding for non-defense programs outside of veterans’ medical care is about 3 percent
below its 2010 level, adjusted for inflation, and 10 percent below when adjusted for both inflation and population growth. Funding for these programs needs to
rise to meet national needs, address shortfalls that hamper the delivery of government services, and help create an economy in which everyone has the resources needed to thrive.
A Closer Look at the Cuts Required in Different Scenarios
There is no agreed-on way to measure total funding for annually appropriated programs, also known as discretionary programs. In general, we focus on annual funding that addresses ongoing programmatic needs.
[3] Applying our methodology, we estimate that a total of $1.52 trillion was appropriated for defense and non-defense programs in 2022 and $1.65 trillion in 2023. Therefore, funding these programs at the 2022 level in 2024, consistent with the House Republicans’ pledge, would require a cut of $133 billion or 8 percent from the current 2023 level.
As Table 1 shows, if defense and non-defense discretionary programs were each reduced to their 2022 levels, the percentage reduction for each would be 9 percent for defense and 7 percent for non-defense. But because House Republicans have already raised concerns about cutting defense and veterans’ programs, it is likely that other non-defense programs would bear the brunt of their pledge to hold
total discretionary funding to its 2022 level. (Importantly, the defense budget is almost entirely the Department of Defense, while the Department of Veterans Affairs, including its hospitals, is considered part of the non-defense budget.) As Rep. Tom Cole, chair of the House Rules Committee and Appropriations panel on transportation and housing, said: “I don't know very many that honestly want to cut defense spending. I think a lot of members don't understand that it’s over half the discretionary budget. And nobody I know wants to cut veterans spending.”
[4]
Let’s look first at veterans’ medical care. Particularly in recent years, Congress has sought to provide the full amount necessary to meet the needs of eligible veterans seeking care. Virtually all of these services are funded through annual appropriations and now represent the largest single non-defense program area, accounting for close to one-sixth of all non-defense appropriations. In 2023 veterans’ medical care received $124 billion, or $21 billion more than in 2022. Typically, more than 85 percent of funding for veterans’ medical care is provided through advance appropriations (for example, most such funding for 2023 was provided a year in advance, in the 2022 appropriations bill, with the remainder appropriated in the 2023 bill). This approach protects the program from funding disruptions and gives appropriators an opportunity to top up funding a year later, when more information on funding needs becomes available.
Given the advance appropriation already provided in the 2023 bill for 2024, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates in its most recent baseline projections
[5] that total 2024 appropriations for veterans’ medical care will be $17 billion higher than the 2023 level. If the cost of that increase were offset by reductions in
other non-defense programs (but
defense were still cut back to the 2022 level), then non-defense programs outside veterans’ medical care would need to be reduced by 11 percent on average to meet the House Republicans’ pledge.
[6]
Policymakers’ reluctance to cut defense funding would likely force far larger cuts in non-defense program areas if overall discretionary funding were ratcheted back to its 2022 level.
[7] Reducing defense funding to its 2022 level in 2024 would require a cut of $76 billion from its current level. If instead one assumes that defense funding is frozen in 2024 — that is, held at its 2023 level rather than being reduced to the 2022 level — but that House Republicans still press to return total discretionary funding to its 2022 level, then those additional cuts would need to be absorbed by non-defense programs
. If that comes on top of protecting veterans’ medical care, then the remaining non-defense programs would need to be cut by 23 percent on average. (See Figure 1.) If policymakers increase defense above its 2023 level, then non-defense programs would have to be cut even more deeply.
