Freedom Caucus: All Bark, No Bite... Happy To Be Rolled Again

Why did the self-proclaimed fight-’til-the-end fringe extreme of the House GOP conference not fight-til-the-end on, of all things, the budget? Yesterday, Catie Edmondson, who’s been covering this beat intensely, listed their excuses for giving up. As always, Chip Roy was rolled— along with Freedom Caucus chair Andy Harris (R-MD), Eric Burlison (R-MO), Lloyd Smucker (R-PA) and roughly a dozen others, allowed themselves to be lulled into complacency and irrelevance.

Roy and his cohorts wouldn’t shut up all week about how the GOP’s budget blueprint for slashing taxes and spending didn’t have enough cuts to government programs (Medicaid). “The math isn’t mathing,” Roy kept repeating to anyone who would listen. Everyone knew he doesn’t have the intestinal fortitude to stand up to Trump and his whole party, so on Thursday, he and all of his Freedom Caucus amigos voted for it. Only libertarian Thomas Massie and lunatic cuckcoo bird Victoria Spartz voted against it, no enough to stop it.

Roy explained his turnabout in a statement released on social media:

"Today, I reluctantly voted for the Senate amendment to the House Budget Resolution on the basis of three specific commitments that form the floor for my consideration of the final reconciliation package.

"First, the President committed to a minimum of $1 trillion in real reductions in mandatory spending, efforts to fully repeal the damaging “green scam” subsidies in the Inflation Reduction Act, and Medicaid reforms addressing eligibility, waste, fraud, abuse, and the disastrous money laundering schemes pervasive in the program.

"Second, the Speaker of the House made a specific commitment to guarantee the House framework tying tax cuts to spending cuts. This was a non-negotiable deal-breaker  – and will be for the final product.  In keeping with the House budget resolution, the commitment would mean we start with a base assumption of $2.5 Trillion in economic growth and then $1 for $1 tax cuts to spending cuts above that number – such that when we achieve $1.4 Trillion in cuts, we will achieve the number necessary for TCJA permanence.

"Third, and finally, the Senate Majority Leader committed to achieving the House minimum of $1.5 Trillion in spending cuts. This comes on top of budget topline numbers that, while aspirational, represent a significant statement of commitment by the Senate to drive down spending.

"I would have preferred we amended the Senate bill to reflect these commitments. But, in the interest of comity, I will take them at their word. But, to be clear, failure to achieve these baselines including deficit neutrality will make it impossible for me to support a final reconciliation product.

"This is the opportunity for Congress to simply make a down payment on our $36 trillion national debt. It is on all Republicans to ensure that the crippling tax of inflation does not put car and home ownership further out of reach for the American family. It is time for House and Senate committees to get to work to save our Republic from financial ruin. Failure is not an option. I look forward to working with Majority Leader Thune, Speaker Johnson, and the President to deliver for the American people.”

“Finding the votes necessary to pass legislation,” wrote Edmondson, “that adheres to those vows will be difficult. Roy said that Trump had committed to ‘a minimum of $1 trillion in real reductions in mandatory spending,’ the portion of federal funding not controlled by Congress, most of which goes to entitlement programs for the poor, older people, veterans and others. He also said the president had committed to ‘efforts to fully repeal the damaging green scam subsidies in the Inflation Reduction Act [and] Medicaid reforms addressing eligibility, waste, fraud, abuse, and the disastrous money laundering schemes pervasive in the program.’”

Some of Roy’s more moderate colleagues, in both the House and the Senate, have chafed at the prospect of cuts to Medicaid and other safety net programs. They have also objected to the wholesale repeal of the inflation law in an effort to protect the clean energy tax credits it provides to businesses in their districts and states.

Roy said that Speaker Mike Johnson had “made a specific commitment to guarantee the House framework tying tax cuts to spending cuts.” In the House, Republicans pledged that if they ultimately found less than $2 trillion in spending to eliminate, they would shrink their planned $4.5 trillion tax cut by the amount of the shortfall. For instance, if Republicans cut only $1.5 trillion in spending— the floor set in the budget plan— the tax cut could ultimately drop to $4 trillion.

And Roy said that Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the majority leader, had promised that his chamber would approve at least $1.5 trillion in spending cuts, a number Republicans in the House have said they plan to achieve largely through the committee that oversees Medicaid.

Roy warned that his support for the final budget package was contingent on all of those commitments being kept.

“In the interest of comity, I will take them at their word,” he wrote. “But, to be clear, failure to achieve these baselines, including deficit neutrality, will make it impossible for me to support a final reconciliation product.”

Everyone knew Roy, Burlison, Harris and the others are just big talkers and drama queens who always embrace this whole smoke-and-mirrors austerity act in the end. That’s the Freedom Caucus' tell: all bark, no bite. For all their grandstanding, fiery floor speeches, and MAGA podcast appearances, they fold like cheap lawn chairs the moment leadership waves some sleight-of-hand numbers in front of them. A vague promise of future "entitlement reform"— Washington-speak for cutting programs that people actually rely on— is all it took for Chip Roy and crew to claim victory and fall in line.

It happens every time. They thump their chests about principle, posture for the cameras, and then ultimately rubber-stamp whatever Trump or the House leadership needs passed. Whether it’s debt ceiling hikes, continuing resolutions, or bloated Pentagon budgets, they always manage to convince themselves they've “won” something— usually a meaningless side letter or a verbal assurance that never materializes. They’re the political equivalent of someone yelling about a rigged game while still handing over their chips.

The truth is, the Freedom Caucus isn’t a bloc of ideological warriors. They’re a bunch of cosplayers addicted to the performance of resistance, who melt the moment the smoke machines start whirring. As long as there's a shiny object or a rhetorical bone tossed their way, they’ll keep letting themselves be played. And every time they do, their MAGAt constituents pay the price.