A new member of the House Freedom Caucus called for a sit-down between GOP hardliners and Republican lawmakers leading talks on government spending.
This comes after some of these hardliners banded together for a procedural vote on the spending bill dealing with the Justice and Commerce departments last week.
Rep. Eric Burleson, R-Mo., said the dispute was not a traditional dispute between leadership and insurrectionists, but rather two starkly divided groups of Republicans in the House.
“What I think is the real battle, is not between the conference and [Speaker] Mike Johnson. It’s caucus against caucus,” Burleson, who did not vote to sink the bill but did vote against the House GOP government funding extension last week, told Fox News Digital on Friday.
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Rep. Eric Burleson is a new member of the House Freedom Caucus. (Getty Images)
“There is a wide gulf between the mindset of many appropriators, who seem to have no desire to make deep cuts, and people like us in the Freedom Caucus.”
Lawmakers on the House Appropriations Committee have been tasked with putting together 12 spending bills needed to fund the federal government in the next fiscal year.
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GOP hardliners, like Burleson, accused Republicans in charge of spending of trying to exceed key numbers set by the House Republicans’ Limit, Save and Grow Act. Conservatives called on the House of Representatives to adhere to these numbers even though the bill died on its arrival in the Senate.
Burleson said the “real battle” for conservatives within the House GOP is not with House Speaker Mike Johnson, but with Republicans responsible for spending. (Wayne McNamee/Getty Images)
Instead, the Senate is writing its appropriations to the centerpiece of President Biden and former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s debt limits deal, the Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA). There is approximately $120 billion difference between the two maximum levels.
“Whether they don’t realize the serious financial burden we have, or they don’t want to take responsibility for being the bad guys and making the cuts to their own allotments, I don’t know what it is, but something has to change,” Burleson said of the appropriators.
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“After McCarthy was evicted, the appropriators decided on their own that they were going to fit into the FRA’s standards. Without anyone at the conference discussing this, the appropriators went rogue…and that’s what pisses off a lot of people, a lot of conservatives. It’s a lack of respect for the rest of the members. Conference.”
Rep. Kay Granger, R-Texas, is chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. (Getty Images)
Burleson called a meeting between the Republican appropriators and the Freedom Caucus, a request he said has yet to be fulfilled.
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Fox News Digital reached out to the House Appropriations Committee but did not immediately receive a response.
Tensions between House lawmakers responsible for government finances and the right wing of the Republican Party have steadily grown during the federal spending battle. That tension flared just last month during the race for House Speaker, when a large number of Republicans on the Appropriations Committee became one of the strongest opposition blocs against then-GOP nominee Jim Jordan of Ohio.