House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said the White House had no more excuses to avoid engaging with his party over the debt limit after he unveiled House Republicans’ plan to deal with it Wednesday.

“President Biden has a choice: Come to the table and stop playing partisan political games or cover his ears, refuse to negotiate and risk bumbling his way into the first default in our nation’s history,” McCarthy said on the House floor.

The White House has said it will not negotiate over the need to raise the limit on government borrowing, currently set to $31.38 trillion. But it has said it would be open to a separate negotiation on spending and taxes if Republicans could put forward a plan that can pass the House.

McCarthy’s speech was a signal that he thought his caucus was on the brink of doing that, a prospect that appeared somewhat doubtful Tuesday. He said the legislative effort would be headed up by Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-Texas), chairman of the House Budget Committee.

The plan would allow the government to restart its borrowing until it uses up $1.5 trillion in borrowing authority or March 31, 2024, whichever comes earlier.

McCarthy said the plan would provide $4.5 trillion in savings, though he did not specify how that figure was reached or how it interacted with the potential $1.5 trillion debt limit increase.

It would revert the annual spending Congress provides for defense and federal agencies to the same level seen in 2022 and then grow that amount by 1% each year.

Given inflation, which balloons the baseline of spending growth as projected by the Congressional Budget Office, that soft freeze would add up to a large amount of savings over time. The plan envisions a spending limit of $1.6 trillion in 2033, nearly $700 billion less than the CBO expects that year.

It would also rescind unused monies set aside for fighting COVID, repeal a raft of clean energy tax credits, tighten work requirements for federal cash and food assistance recipients, and ease energy exploration limits.

“These spending limits are not draconian. They are responsible,” said McCarthy on the floor, likely anticipating a Democratic critique.

While having a bill drafted is a major hurdle cleared for House Republicans, whether it can gather the needed 218 of 222 House GOP votes for passage will remain to be seen.

By appearing not to give any exemption for defense spending, which makes up more than half of annual appropriations, the annual spending caps could face a tough reception.

Asked about the realism of the idea of a freeze at 2022 levels with only small growth after, Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.), a former House Appropriations chairman, told HuffPost on Tuesday, “Well, we’ll see.”

And Rep. Frank Lucas (R-Okla.), a former chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, warned things like tougher food assistance work requirements was a perennial idea that was not as simple as it sounded.

“These are discussions we have in every session of Congress,” he told HuffPost Tuesday before the details were announced.

“We’ll see. But a lot of my friends who are enthusiastic about this have not worked on this subject matter in great detail. It’s the details that make legislating fun.”

In addition to specific objections, McCarthy will also have to win over a small group of House Republicans who have headed into the debt limit fight skeptical of either the need to boost it or the dangers of not doing so.