Exclusive: Republican Leaders Detail How Debt Ceiling Will Enable Appropriations Process as a ‘Power Tool’ to Defund Joe Biden’s Agenda, Woke Policies

House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-NY), House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH), and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) explained how the debt ceiling would enable Republicans to have leverage during the upcoming spending battle to combat President Joe Biden’s agenda and other woke policies.

Stefanik, Jordan, and Greene spoke to Breitbart News ahead of Wednesday’s pivotal vote on the debt ceiling legislation, otherwise known as the Fiscal Responsibility Act.

The legislation would cut the deficit by $1.5 trillion over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

The Republican lawmakers explained that the debt ceiling legislation contains a crucial Republican provision, crafted by Rules Committee member Thomas Massie (R-KY), that would automatically pass a continuing resolution with a one percent across-the-board federal government cut if Congress fails to pass the 12 separate appropriations bills, which the Constitution stipulates.

As Massie said during the House Republican Conference meeting on Tuesday night, “The debt limit is a scrimmage match, and approps [appropriations] is the Super Bowl.”

Stefanik explained that the Appropriations Committee has already been working to identify “waste, fraud, and abuse” in the federal government, and the appropriations process would allow Republicans to go after the “deep state.”

She explained just a few ways that Republicans can work to defund Biden’s woke agenda and rein in runaway government.

“We can also use the appropriations process to stop the politicized DOJ and FBI from illegally targeting law-abiding Americans. I sit on the Intel Committee and the Select Committee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government,” Stefanik said. “And the approps [appropriations] process is one of our most effective tools to ensure that we’re standing up for the constitutional rights of Americans. We can also prevent ATF [Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) agency] from criminalizing law-abiding gun owners, which is so important, I know, to all of us on this call as staunch supporters for the Second Amendment, and we also have the ability to stop agencies from forcing ESG [Environment, Social, and Governance] programs that put our seniors’ retirements at risk.”

Greene explained that she was initially reluctant to back the Fiscal Responsibility Act; however, she said that the appropriations leverage was “special.”

The Georgia Republican, who serves on the Weaponization Select Committee and the Coronavirus Select Committee, noted that Republicans can defund the FBI’s proposed new headquarters through the appropriations process. She noted that Republicans could target Anthony Fauci’s generous federal retirement plan through future spending bills and ensure that the federal government does not fund more “unnecessary” coronavirus vaccines.

“This is the first debt ceiling increase where we actually are reducing year-over-year spending,” Jordan said.

Jordan charged that the appropriations incentive would allow Republicans to prevent Senate Democrats and the White House from passing another omnibus spending bill. As Breitbart News reported, the $1.7 trillion omnibus bill was stuffed with $45 billion in Ukraine aid, seemingly endless amounts of earmarks, and other pork-barrel projects.

“We’re not going to stand for that [the omnibus]. The speaker has been clear, and this mechanism that’s put in the bill, I think, will help us deal with that situation and get the policy changes that Elise and Marjorie mentioned that we need to get in the appropriations process,” Jordan said.

Jordan credited McCarthy and the GOP Conference for pushing the appropriations incentive into the debt ceiling compromise. “I think the Speaker and I think our entire conference are committed to actually making that happen, and it was the first step in putting it together.”