President Joe Biden is expected to meet tomorrow (May 9) with the “four corners” Congressional leaders – U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) – for the first of what will likely be many conversations regarding the raising of the federal debt ceiling. The meeting comes after U.S. Department of the Treasury (Treasury) Secretary Janet Yellen announced that the federal government would exhaust its “extraordinary measures” and breach the debt ceiling as soon as June 1.
House Republicans passed on April 26 the “Limit, Save, and Grow Act” (H.R.2811), a Republican proposal to lift the federal debt ceiling in exchange for cutting federal domestic spending for fiscal year (FY) 2024 to FY22 levels, which would result in at least a 23% reduction in funding for key programs, depending on how cuts are designed. The proposal would also limit future spending increases to just 1% annually for 10 years, rescind unspent COVID-19 relief funds, and put in place or impose harsher work requirements for some anti-poverty programs. In exchange for these drastic proposals, the bill would raise the federal debt ceiling until March 31, 2024, or by $1.5 trillion, whichever comes first, putting Congress in the position of having to restart debt ceiling negotiations all over again next year.
More than a dozen Senate Republicans rallied behind Speaker McCarthy’s bill at a May 3 press conference on Capitol Hill, voicing their support for the House Speaker’s call for making deep cuts to domestic spending and increasing burdensome work requirements. The White House, along with Democratic leadership in the House and Senate, is pushing for a “clean” increase to the debt ceiling and maintains that the debt ceiling and FY24 spending should be negotiated separately. Nearly 200 Democrats in the House signed on to an April 26 letter, led by House Committee on Budget Ranking Member Brenden Boyle (D-PA), Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), and New Democrat Coalition Chair Annie Kuster (D-NH), to House Republican leadership calling on their Republican colleagues to enact a “clean” debt ceiling increase.
While House Republicans’ debt ceiling legislation will not pass the Democrat-controlled Senate as it is currently written - the proposal is being billed by some as an “opening bid” for negotiations. Some moderate Democrats have softened their opposition to some of the bill’s provisions, noting that provisions like work requirements and spending caps could be areas where common ground could be found.
If enacted, the proposal would make it impossible for HUD to stave off mass evictions, according to a letter from HUD Secretary Marcia L. Fudge to House Committee on Appropriations Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro (D-CT). In the letter, the Secretary suggested that drastic cuts to HUD’s programs would cause nearly 1 million households currently being served by the department’s rental assistance programs to lose their housing assistance, putting them at risk of housing instability and evictions, and that nearly 120,000 fewer people experiencing homelessness would receive services.
Capping future spending at a paltry 1% per year would likewise have a tremendously negative impact on the people served by affordable housing and homelessness programs. These programs must receive increased funding from one year to the next just to maintain the number of households being served. Even after recent funding increases to federal programs, many are still being impacted by the austere spending caps put in place by the “Budget Control Act of 2011.” Indeed, HUD’s cumulative appropriations since FY2010 are still slightly lower than they would be had annual appropriations remained at FY2010 levels and been adjusted only for inflation.
Take Action
It is unacceptable to balance the federal budget by demanding cuts to programs that help the lowest-income households survive. There is a national shortage of approximately 7.3 million affordable, available homes for people with the lowest incomes, and only one in four households who qualify for federal housing assistance receives the help it needs. Without adequate funding for vital federal affordable housing and homeless assistance programs, households with the lowest incomes will continue to live precariously, only one missed paycheck or unexpected emergency away from housing instability, eviction, and, in the worst cases, homelessness.
In addition to scheduling in-district meetings with their members of Congress, advocates can continue to take action in the following ways:
- Sign your organization on to the Campaign for Housing and Community Development Funding’s (CHCDF) annual budget letter, calling on Congress to reject spending cuts and instead provide the highest possible allocation for HUD’s and USDA’s affordable housing, homelessness, and community development programs in FY24.
- Email your members of Congress today and urge them to increase – not cut – resources for affordable housing and homelessness in FY24 and to support NLIHC’s top appropriations priorities:
- $32.7 billion for the TBRA program to renew existing vouchers and to expand the program to an additional 200,000 households.
- $5.4 billion for public housing operations and $5 billion for public housing repairs.
- $3.8 billion for HUD’s Homeless Assistance Grants program.
- $100 million for legal assistance to prevent evictions.
- $3 billion for a permanent Emergency Rental Assistance program.
- $300 million for the competitive tribal housing grants, targeted to tribes with the greatest needs.
- Check out NLIHC’s advocacy toolkit, “Oppose Dramatic Cuts to Federal Investments in Affordable Housing,” for talking points, sample social media messages, and more!