Because the costs of government programs rise with inflation, that would still mean substantial spending cuts: $4.8 trillion over a decade, according to an estimate released on Tuesday by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

Eventually, Republicans would need to identify spending cuts totaling $3.6 trillion over a decade, by their own calculations, and this bill does not outline them. Instead, House Republican leaders are punting those decisions to the Appropriations Committee.

One fight appropriators will have to resolve is how to balance the cuts between defense-related spending and spending on other domestic programs, like environmental protection and education. House Republicans in particular have been loathe to adopt any cuts to military spending, but leaving those budgets intact would require steeper cuts to other programs.

Even if Republicans succeeded in imposing the caps, there is no guarantee they would produce anywhere close to the promised savings. Lawmakers in the future could simply vote to ignore them, as they did frequently with the spending caps that President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans agreed on to avoid a debt default in 2011.

The bill would undo major parts of the Biden administration’s landmark health, climate and tax law, called the Inflation Reduction Act. Republicans proposed repealing an array of energy tax credits and spending programs in the law that aim to cut greenhouse gas emissions, including those that incentivize the use of previously owned electric vehicles and the production of clean electricity and fuel.