Statement in Support of Provisions of the RSC’s Budget Reconciliation Framework

I write to commend the Republican Study Committee for certain key deregulatory provisions contained in Making the American Dream Affordable Again: a Framework for the Next Reconciliation Bill. Where progressives too often encourage unhealthy dependency on the federal government, the framework instead bolsters resiliency, such as by allowing households with one working parent to double annual 401(k) contributions. 

The framework appropriately targets reforms crucial to sustaining economic growth and reducing cost burdens on American families, including lowering economic frictions in housing, health care, and energy markets.

More sweeping reforms in the framework would further safeguard innovation and individual liberty by limiting the power of federal bureaucrats and restoring congressional accountability. These include codifying President Trump’s executive orders to make his deregulatory agenda permanent and prohibiting economically significant rules that have not been approved by Congress.

As the blueprint correctly notes, certain reforms require careful framing to comply with the Byrd Rule’s requirements for inclusion in reconciliation legislation.

In this regard, regulatory budgets have been proposed as amendments to the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act (UMRA). The 119th Congress’s REG Budgeting Act (H.R. 3279), for example, would amend UMRA to require the Office of Management and Budget to establish annual limits on “additional unfunded regulatory costs” that may be imposed in a fiscal year.

Title I of UMRA already requires the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to estimate the costs of mandates and provides Members a point of order against legislation imposing unfunded mandates above statutory thresholds—a protection that applies notwithstanding the use of reconciliation. By operating through quantified cost caps and existing budget-enforcement mechanisms, the REG Budgeting Act may present a significantly more defensible path for incorporating regulatory reform into reconciliation than prior approaches. Reconciliation is powerful, but UMRA remains one of the few statutes capable of imposing real discipline within that process.

The RSC framework’s emphasis on meaningful regulatory reform, coupled with policies that encourage private-sector growth, offers a credible model for reconciliation and reflects a clear understanding that durable prosperity arises not from expanded government control, but from protecting individual initiative and economic freedom.