House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., greets Rep. Chip Roy, R-Tex., after being elected speaker in January. Roy is a member of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, which pushed McCarthy to demand steep cuts to federal spending in a bill the House passed last week. Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post

In early March, a powerful group of far-right House Republicans issued its demands over the debt ceiling, signaling it would “consider” supporting an increase if Congress gutted federal spending and revoked many of President Biden’s top priorities.

One month later, the block helped pass a GOP bill that accomplishes nearly every one of their original policy aims – and now some of those conservatives say it’s just the beginning.

For the roughly three dozen lawmakers in the House Freedom Caucus, the fight over the nation’s fiscal health has doubled as an affirmation of their rapid political ascent. With the government divided – and Republicans only in possession of a narrow, delicate advantage in the chamber – the bloc has evolved from an irascible minority faction into a controlling legislative force.

The conservative caucus first flexed its muscle after the 2022 midterms, holding up the selection of Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., as speaker of the House until it could secure several policy priorities. That included a commitment to wage war with Biden over fiscal issues, using the debt ceiling – the country’s ability to borrow to pay its bills – as leverage.

House Republicans formally put that plan in motion on Wednesday, approving a measure that would cut spending by billions of dollars, impose new work requirements on welfare recipients, and repeal federal funds meant to combat climate change. At every turn, conservatives shaped the bill, even forcing McCarthy in the final hours to revise it – after initially promising he would not.

The final version of the so-called Limit, Save, Grow Act does not address their fuller policy wishlist – and some far-right Republicans didn’t vote for it. But conservatives declared victory anyway, with some promising to push even harder for aggressive spending cuts, targeting everything from workplace safety inspections to federal college aid in the months to come.

“What we did in January to get change – to get true conservatism – is working,” said Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., a caucus member who serves on the House Budget Committee, in an interview before he voted for McCarthy’s bill. “Does it go far enough? I would like to go a lot further. This is a start in the right direction.”

Norman said he wouldn’t support any bipartisan Senate bill that was weaker than what the House adopted. And he said the caucus would keep pressing for even deeper cuts as part of the annual appropriations process.

Asked if conservatives could use the threat of a shutdown for more leverage, Norman twice replied: “Absolutely.”

The rise of the far-right Republicans underscores the tough task facing McCarthy – and the broader economic risks in the party’s new gambit. A failure to raise the debt ceiling, possibly within six weeks, could cause the U.S. government to default, most likely tipping the country into another recession.

The mere prospect of such a crisis has already started to spook Wall Street, influencing the way investors purchase government bonds and prompting at least one rating agency to warn that persistent dysfunction could result in a downgrade in U.S. credit. A similar punishment cost taxpayers more than $1 billion in 2011 when the GOP last held up a debt ceiling increase in the pursuit of massive spending cuts.

Citing those fears, Biden has refused to negotiate with Republicans, calling for an increase in the debt ceiling without conditions. Launching his reelection campaign this week, the president repeatedly attacked the GOP as a party held hostage by “MAGA extremists,” referring to lawmakers who share the views of former president Donald Trump.

The president has threatened to veto the GOP bill, and Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., on Thursday promised his party “will not allow” the measure, which he renamed the Default on America Act, “to become law.” But Republicans have not budged in their refusal to raise the debt limit unconditionally, as McCarthy insists the House legislation is a tactic meant to “get us to the negotiating table.”

The GOP’s far-right flank, meanwhile, has staked a more aggressive stance. With the clock ticking, some members insist the bill approved this week is the bare minimum they would accept – no matter what Democrats may later demand.

“This is the deal that gets to 218,” said Rep. Bob Good, R-Va., a member of the House Freedom Caucus, in an interview before the vote. “So, in my view, to maintain 218 in the House, Speaker McCarthy has to convey – he must convey to Sen. Schumer and President Biden – that this is the deal and he cannot get to 218 with changes to this deal.”

“I think a lot of what’s in the package is what’s going to need to be there,” added Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., another caucus member, after Republicans finalized the bill. “The president has said he wants a clean debt ceiling, and he’s telling the House to take it. There are not 60 votes in the Senate for a clean debt ceiling.”

On their own, conservatives have immense sway over McCarthy’s agenda, since Republicans hold 222 seats – meaning the speaker only has four votes to spare. In exchange for handing him the gavel, far-right lawmakers also extracted from McCarthy the power to force a vote that could remove him from the position.

That calculus has weighed heavily on others in the party, particularly moderates, who have agonized for compromise. Some privately admit Republicans may have no choice but to rely on the support of some House Democrats if they have any hopes of passing a Senate-backed bill to prevent a default since the GOP’s conservative wing ultimately would vote against it.

“Anything that becomes law has got to get 60 votes in the Senate, which means it’s got to be a two-party solution,” said Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., co-chair of the Problem Solvers Caucus, one of the so-called “five families” – a Godfather movie reference – that comprise the Republican conference. “The question is, are all the five families going to be able to accept a vote that garners 60 votes in the Senate.”

The House GOP proposal bears striking resemblance to the blueprint that far-right lawmakers unveiled in March, as they laid out the conditions in which they might support a debt increase – something many conservatives had never done in the past. Appearing at a news conference last month, Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., the leader of the House Freedom Caucus, pledged to “shrink” Washington as rank-and-file far-right lawmakers swiped at “woke” federal spending.

“Truth be told, the preference was not to raise it at all and pay down the debts we currently have, so we didn’t need to raise it,” Perry said in an interview after the bill passed, noting that in conversation with GOP leadership, the caucus settled on the idea that “upfront dollar savings needed to be maximized.”

The House measure would roll back federal spending to levels adopted in 2022, potentially a roughly $131 billion cut, while capping the growth of agencies’ future budgets at 1%. Republicans already had promised to target reductions at health care, education, science, research, and labor programs, which the Biden administration has warned would delay airline flights, slow down Social Security checks and leave millions of low-income families without child care and housing aid.

Some in the caucus initially signaled they might have preferred even deeper spending cuts: Joining Perry onstage last month, Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, at one point hinted at reverting spending to the levels adopted in 2019, which could amount to nearly $200 billion in cuts, largely from domestic initiatives.

The caucus also secured from McCarthy a vast policy agenda: Work requirements on welfare recipients, an end to Biden’s student debt cancellation plan, new powers for Congress to overturn federal regulations, an expansion of oil and gas drilling, and a revocation of funds to help Washington pursue tax cheats.

Behind the scenes, though, some House Freedom Caucus still expressed reservations with McCarthy’s approach – and pushed the House speaker to go further. Lawmakers including Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., called publicly for tougher, longer work requirements for the recipients of food stamps and Medicaid. Gaetz did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

The more significant uprising arrived when a coalition of Midwest Republicans came to the surprising defense of a series of federal tax breaks to boost ethanol, solar, and wind energy. Republicans had opposed the credits as part of the Inflation Reduction Act, which Biden enacted last year, yet Rep. Derrick Van Orden, R-Wis., joined four GOP lawmakers from corn-heavy Iowa to preserve the programs anyway – angering conservatives that had hoped to repeal the entire law.

With the fate of the bill in jeopardy, McCarthy and his top aides settled the dispute in the twilight hours by softening the repeal of the tax credits and taking aim at federal subsidies targeting environmental justice, national parks, and other programs. That satisfied Midwestern Republicans and mollified conservative critics, who initially saw the discussions as a breach of trust by leadership, according to two people familiar with the matter who requested anonymity to describe the private haggling.

Roy, the next day, characterized that initial reaction as a misunderstanding, telling reporters that once trust was reestablished, they worked together to find a compromise between the groups. But the changes still did not assuage four members of the caucus, who broke with their party to oppose the measure.

“Both sides had to give a little bit,” Perry later said. “We had to show and demonstrate we could get to 218, and we have a Congress that is functional.”

Hoping to add to the pressure, some members of the House Freedom Caucus are exploring ways to obtain additional spending cuts. They have focused their attention on the 12 spending bills that fund federal agencies and programs – seizing on the fact that Congress must pass them before Oct. 1 or the government could shut down in whole or part.

“Now that the freedom caucus has four members on appropriations, there’s a louder call for cuts within the committee,” said Rep. Ben Cline, R-Va., one of those members, who said it “should result in different, more streamlined, and smaller discretionary appropriations bills when they come out next month.”

But conservatives have encountered early hesitancy from senior GOP appropriators, some of whom have questioned if Republicans broadly can achieve $130 billion in cuts – not to mention the even-deeper reductions that some far-right members now seek. Privately, some GOP lawmakers admit there is no chance the Senate would ever accept such low spending levels.

“We need to come together to ensure committees receive the support they need while also making sure we’re not contributing to surging prices and out-of-control deficits through irresponsible fiscal policies,” said Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., who oversees the transportation spending panel, during a hearing earlier this month, adding that Democrats’ concerns about the effects of deep cuts are “perfectly legitimate.”

In a sign of their aggressive posture, Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., joined other far-right Republicans in March to announce 507 proposals that he said would slash another $100 billion in spending next fiscal year and roughly $1 trillion over the next decade. Biggs, who later opposed McCarthy’s legislation, touted the approach for cleaving “woke” spending out of federal agencies while slowing the “acceleration” of the national debt.

The far-right lawmakers transmitted their requests to House appropriators, then released their bills to little fanfare in early April, offering a budget-trimming road map for GOP lawmakers. They proposed to eliminate the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, an agency that conducts workplace safety inspections. They sought to take away all funding for an Education Department program that administers college financial aid, threatening to cut off Pell grants to the roughly 6.7 million low-income Americans who currently receive them.

Conservatives also recommended new caps on agencies that conduct cutting-edge cancer research, oversee food safety, help retirees access their pensions, place foster children in homes, and aid lawmakers in conducting investigations, according to a Washington Post analysis of the legislation.

A spokesman for Biggs, the chief sponsor of the legislation, did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

“It’s long past time to rein in spending and eliminate wasteful spending programs,” he said in a statement earlier this month.