The prolonged fight last year in which Republicans held the Children’s Health Insurance Program hostage, threatening coverage for children in dozens of states, turned CHIP into a political football. What had once been a popular, non-controversial program easily getting bipartisan support has turned into a Republican target.
Case in point: Nearly half of the proposed $15 billion in spending rescissions the White House is proposing is going to come from money already earmarked for the Children's Health Insurance Program, a proposal even some Republicans are not going to be able to stomach.
The White House will formally ask Congress on Tuesday to roll back $7 billion in already appropriated Children's Health Insurance Program funds as part of a $15 billion rescission proposal officials are calling the largest one-time package ever requested of Congress by a president.
More than $5 billion of the CHIP funds the White House wants to cut comes from unspent funds from 2017 that White House officials say will have no impact on the program. An additional $1.9 billion in CHIP cuts would come from a contingency fund states can tap into if they enroll more children than expected, senior administration officials said Monday evening. […]
"Let's be honest about what this is: President Trump and Republicans in Congress are looking to tear apart the bipartisan Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), hurting middle-class families and low-income children, to appease the most conservative special interests and feel better about blowing up the deficit to give the wealthiest few and biggest corporations huge tax breaks," Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on the Senate floor."
The Senate Finance Committee Ranking Democrat Ron Wyden, blasted the White House for making the healthcare of millions of kids "the first target in a political charade."
The rescissions are largely a PR stunt, giving deficit peacock Republicans something to point at and say they are fiscally conservative after having voted for nearly $2 trillion in tax cuts and a $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill. The rescissions are also a way to appease popular vote loser Donald Trump who had an out-and-out public tantrum over signing the bill.
Notably, the fact sheet the White House provided to reporters on the rescissions request leaves out that $7 billion they propose to cut from CHIP. Even they know that it's a good way for what is essentially a PR stunt to totally backfire with the public. At the same time, though, they're warning that this is just the beginning, and next time they'll go for deeper cuts. "'When we put together the next package, it is going to be based on what this administration feels are wasteful and ineffective programs,' one official said, promising a bigger effort to get rid of actual spending programs, rather than just clearing the books of money which was never spent."