McCarthy gave Biden a blank line of credit for the remainder of his presidency in exchange for peanuts. But that doesn’t mean Republicans have to appropriate the money in accordance with that deal. Just because McCarthy gave away the leverage on the debt ceiling doesn’t mean Republicans should roll over on the budget bills ahead of the September 30 funding deadline. In fact, without the hyped threat of a debt default (only a mere partial gov’t shutdown), now is the time for McCarthy to atone for his sin and floor the gas pedal on conservative priorities in the budget bills.

Some members of the Freedom Caucus have a message for McCarthy and his leadership team: If you want to pass bills with more Democratic than Republican support, then we will return the favor and join with Democrats to take down rules for debate on future legislation. That’s exactly what 11 members of the HFC did on Tuesday.

Every bill voted on in the House must first obtain support for the rule constructing debate over that bill. Historically, the minority party always opposed the rule for a bill proposed by the majority, and the majority members — even those who oppose the underlying bill — always supported the rule. For members of the majority party to oppose the rule is considered an act of rebellion against the speaker’s control of the chamber, which is why a rule has not been defeated since 2002. But on Tuesday, a group of 11 Republicans joined with every Democrat to oppose H. Res. 463, the rule paving the way for debate over the REINS Act (HR 277 and HR 288) and a pair of bills (HR 1615 and HR 1640) banning restrictions on gas-powered stoves.

Although these members obviously supported the underlying bills, the opposition to the rule was a vehicle to lodge their displeasure with the speaker for the deal he cut with Biden. Opposing the green new deal and supporting the REINS Act were two key provisions of the House-passed debt ceiling bill that we now know McCarthy never had any intention of fighting for. So kudos to these conservatives for pulling the plug on McCarthy’s bait and switch, which sabotaged our leverage on must-pass legislation in favor of passing standalone bills that will never be signed into law.

But speaking of must-pass bills, House conservatives should continue this rebellion against rules on standalone bills until there is an ironclad commitment from McCarthy on the only bills that really matter: the annual appropriations bills, or the final omnibus bills used as the vehicles to fund the government for FY 2024. In fact, conservatives should demand more in the budget bills — not just the reduced spending levels but policy reforms that bring us back from the brink of becoming a banana republic.

The bottom line is that House Republicans are the only ones who can pass a budget bill. Senate Democrats do not have the votes. So, the leverage Republicans commanded during the debate over the debt ceiling still exists, except it’s even stronger. Rightly or wrongly, Republicans were terrified of brinkmanship over the debt ceiling because of the false narrative of a default cliff. That does not exist with a government funding bill. Republicans must make it clear up front that they will stand by their House-passed appropriations bills and not fear a partial government shutdown, especially after we suffered the shutdown of private life for much of a year thanks to some of these very same COVID policies we are still paying for.

We cannot wait until 2025 to rectify some of these policies because we will not have any country, society, economy, or property rights left when the time comes. To that end, House conservatives should demand the FY 2024 appropriations bills contain the following goals:

1. Return to pre-COVID spending levels: The single biggest reason for this debt crisis is because of the COVID response and the spending undergirding that response. Our federal budget jumped from $4.4 trillion to $6.4 trillion overnight in 2020. COVID is long over, and therefore there is no reason our non-defense discretionary spending levels should not return to FY 2019 levels, which were considered very high at the time.
2. Eliminate all funding for the COVID vaccines: It is simply indefensible to fund the COVID shots, not just because they are unnecessary but because they are harmful and ineffective.
3. Defund all new J6 prosecutions: Almost everyone charged and convicted for J6 offenses was overcharged by a mile. Yet, the D.C. U.S. Attorney’s Office is coming down with a torrent of new indictments. All new indictments must be defunded because anyone who did anything remotely wrong has already been accounted for. In general, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in D.C. needs a serious haircut after receiving a $212.1 million boost last year “to further support prosecutions related to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and domestic terrorism cases,” according to a summary provided by the House Appropriations Committee.
4. Repeal the green new deal: We cannot wait until 2025 to deal with the massive misallocation of our energy resources and electric grid. All appropriations for the green new deal passed by Congress last year must be eliminated within the spending bills for the Department of Energy and Agriculture, Transportation, and several others.
5. No new funding for Ukraine: What have we gotten for our $150 billion investment into the corrupt Ukrainian regime? Either just grift for the country’s leadership, or at best, a perpetuation of a stalemate in areas that are Russian-controlled or composed of ethnic Russians and that are impossible to defend in perpetuity. House Republicans must turn off the spigot once and for all.
6. No catch-and-release at the border: What works even better than a border wall? A legal wall. Republicans need to prohibit funding in the DHS appropriations bill for the release of anyone caught crossing our border into the interior of the country. Democrats cannot win a government shutdown fight over this issue when they are squarely on the other side of the public.
7. No grooming: The entirety of the transgender agenda needs to be extirpated from the federal government. This is not just within the Department of Education but in every branch of government, particularly in the military and in the State Department where we are exporting this filth to the world. All references to “pride,” all funding for castration, and all policies within the Department of Education and HHS indulging the Rainbow Jihad must be prohibited within the budget.
8. Stop Biden’s war on the suburbs: Biden’s Housing and Urban Development Department recently resurrected Obama’s racial gerrymandering of suburbs known as Affirmative Further Fair Housing. It is a tool used to force local governments to impose low-income housing mandates on areas HUD targets for social engineering. It is extremely unpopular, especially considering the rising rates of crime, and a fight Republicans should readily embrace.

There are obviously many more priorities that must be written into each of the 12 appropriations bills. The point is that every other bill GOP representatives write is meaningless unless they back it up by placing the key objectives in the annual budget. In order to achieve these goals, they must not feel constrained by McCarthy’s debt ceiling deal. They should feel constrained by their campaign promises.