The Trump administration, with a big assist from Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), sent its rescission package to Congress this week, with a promise from Speaker Paul Ryan to pass it right away. Ryan and McCarthy—his heir apparent—are meeting some resistance, however. It's coming from some of the key senior lawmakers who don't appreciate this meddling in their jobs.
[L]ongtime appropriators, including Senate Appropriations Chairman Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), are withholding support, even as most of their GOP colleagues flock behind Trump's first major attempt at deficit reduction to get a vote in Congress. […]
That initial resistance includes Sen. Lisa Murkowski—whose vote could help determine whether the bill passes the narrowly divided Senate. With Arizona Sen. John McCain‘s absence, Republicans have a 50 to 49 majority, and can't afford to lose a single GOP vote.
Murkowski (R-Alaska) said she isn't sold on the administration's proposal to cut $684 million from a clean energy loan guarantee program. "I want to make sure that if you take the funds from the account, you don't eliminate the program," the Interior-Environment Subcommittee chairwoman told reporters Thursday. "I don't want Title 17 programs eliminated. I want them reformed."
Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), who holds that position in the House, said Thursday he is "leaning no" on the proposal for the same reason. He said the clean energy program is "something I want to continue."
The White House, in the form of Mick Mulvaney's Office of Management and Budget, says that the while the package contains $15.4 billion in cuts, it really only cuts $3 billion. That's an admission of the political game playing going on here. On the one hand, they want to pass it off as a big deal for cutting spending and being fiscally responsible while on the other they are arguing that it won't make any difference. So is it window dressing or harmful cuts? In a way, both. They're targeting unused funding, but unused doesn't mean unnecessary. For example, Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL), Transportation-HUD panel chairman, points out that states are allowed to use the previously appropriated funds targeted in the rescissions on things like infrastructure. "Now, if you take it out, you're taking money out of the states' funds," he explains. "If you believe, like me, that infrastructure is a needed investment, I think that's problematic taking that away."
That's also true of the $9 billion of cuts to the Children's Health Insurance Program and the cuts to Ebola response funding. It's contingency funding that states and organizations count on having available when they budget for the future. Not having it available in the future makes a difference in what they spend now. It's also just bullshit, and it's adding to the already rampant dysfunction in our government. Which seems to be the larger part of Trump and his team's plan.