White House asks for more storm aid

WASHINGTON — The White House asked Congress on Friday for $44 billion in additional relief in response to this year’s devastating hurricanes, but facing rising budget deficits and pushing a tax plan that could cost $1.5 trillion, the administration also suggested that lawmakers make spending cuts to offset disaster costs.

Republicans have been conspicuously quiet about the ballooning national debt as they press to enact deep tax cuts before the end of the year. The deficit for the 2017 fiscal year totaled $666 billion, an increase of $80 billion from the previous year. And spending continues to climb.

Disaster relief costs are approaching $100 billion, with more likely to come. And congressional leaders are eyeing a deal that would allow nondefense and military spending to burst through strict caps put in place in 2011, when Republican leaders made fiscal rectitude a central organizing principle.

The latest disaster request seemed to indicate that deficit concerns may be rising, at least in the White House. Administration officials laid out a menu of options for budget cutting, totaling $59 billion, from small nicks like $8 million from a rural energy program to far larger options, such as $3.9 billion from student financial aid and $1 billion from transportation infrastructure funds.

Some of those proposals were sure to raise eyebrows. To pay for hurricane reconstruction, the White House suggested cutting nearly $520 million from the Army Corps of Engineers’ flood control and coastal emergencies accounts, which the White House identified as excess money from Hurricane Sandy relief.

But those suggestions were hardly strenuous: The president’s budget director, Mick Mulvaney, wrote that “the administration believes it is prudent to offset new spending.”

And on Capitol Hill, a number of lawmakers from both parties are eager to spend more money, not less. Congress approved one disaster measure in September and another in October.

If lawmakers provide the newly requested funding, the tab for disaster relief approved by Congress in response to hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria, as well as the wildfires in Western states, would total about $96 billion.

The latest relief request was swiftly dismissed as inadequate. Even before the request had been officially released, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said his staff had advised him that it was “wholly inadequate.”