IFPTE Requests Congress Pass the Bipartisan Debt Limit and Budget Legislation

This week, Congress considered and passed the so-called “Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023,” legislation that extends the debt limit until January 2025 while imposing federal spending caps for the next two years and other cuts to benefits and programs.

While IFPTE requested Members of the House and Senate vote to pass this bill in order to prevent a U.S. debt default, IFPTE’s letter to Representatives made clear that this bill “will implement unnecessary two-year spending caps that constrains Congress's ability to fund programs, services, and investments that are necessary to support working families and our nation’s economic competitiveness.” The letter also reminds Representatives that the bill reduced “recent funding increases for the Internal Revenue Service, increases the age for work requirements for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to 54 years, and ends the pause on student loan repayments and interest accruals.” The legislation also fails to live up to its name and is missing any revenue-increasing fair taxation policies that repair the harm to budget deficits and the national debt caused by two decades of tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and large corporations.

However, the legislation avoids the exterme harm that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was seeking in the partisan House-passed “Limit, Save, Grow Act,” “which included 10-year federal spending limits set to FY 2022 spending levels, cuts to federal clean energy investments, and added time limits and administrative hurdles to SNAP, Medicaid and Temporary Assistance to Needy Families.” IFPTE’s letter notes, “That approach not only held the U.S. and global economy hostage to a debt default threat, but it would also have created an impossible target of cutting non-defense discretionary spending by about 25%.” 

IFPTE reiterated it’s disapproval of several provisions in the Fiscal Responsibility Act and told Congress that the union “intends to work in a bipartisan manner to minimize the negative impacts.” IFPTE will also work to make sure the debt ceiling cannot be held hostage in the manner that House Speaker McCarthy did.

Read IFPTE’s letter to Representatives here.