White House Rescissions Proposal Could Cut Funding from Omnibus Spending Bill

The White House is expected to send a proposal to Congress, potentially drawing funding cuts, known as rescissions, from the recently approved omnibus spending package for fiscal year (FY) 2018. The White House plan is based on a 1974 budget law that allows the President to propose rescissions, which then need to be approved by Congress within 45 days. In its FY 2018 budget request, the Trump Administration had proposed deep cuts to several agencies, which were rejected in the final FY 2018 Omnibus Appropriations Act. The President had expressed opposition to increased domestic spending and had initially threatened to veto the bill before finally signing it into law. The rescissions proposal could be seen as a way to reverse some of those increases. The proposal has received skepticism from several lawmakers. Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby (R-AL) said, “If we reach agreement, we ought to honor it. That’s the way I always believed.” Shelby believes that it would be difficult to get the proposal approved by the committee but did not rule out some cuts. Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-TX) also expressed doubts about the proposal advancing in the Senate but added, “Obviously, we ended up spending more money than many Republicans, including me, were happy with, but that was the price of getting the defense spending number at an acceptable level. I think it’s worth talking about, but the devil is going to be in the deta...
Source: Public Policy Reports - Category: Biology Authors: Source Type: news