Administration proposes cutting $15 billion in unused funds

WHuman Services. But some Democrats howled over the Trump proposal anyway.

“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,” Schumer said. However, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that the cut to CHIP wouldn’t affect the number of children covered by the program, according to a letter to House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.

Pressure from party conservatives to increase cuts in a tentative $11 billion proposal contributed to a delay from Monday’s original release date.

The White House and tea party lawmakers upset by the budgetbusting “omnibus” bill have rallied around the plan, aiming to show that Republicans are taking on out-of-control spending. The administration says it will propose cuts to the omnibus measure later in the year.

The spending cuts are also a priority for McCarthy, who likens them to “giving the bloated federal budget a much-needed spring cleaning.” But while the package may pass the House it faces a more difficult path — and potential procedural roadblocks — in the Senate.

McCarthy wants to succeed soon-to-retire House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and some of his allies view the project as a way to improve his standing with fractious GOP conservatives who blocked his path to the speakership in 2015.

The proposal has already had a tortured path even before its unveiling. More pragmatic Republicans, including the senior ranks of the powerful House and Senate Appropriations committees, rebelled against the measure.

They argued that it would be breaking a bipartisan budget pact just weeks after it was negotiated. In response, White House budget director Mulvaney cleansed the measure of cuts to the huge omnibus bill.

Last month, Mulvaney told lawmakers the plan could have totaled $25 billion or so. Now he says he’s planning to submit several different packages of spending cuts.

Either way, the idea faces a challenging path in Congress — particularly the Senate, where a 5149 GOP majority leaves little room for error even though budget rules permit rescission measures to advance free of filibuster threats. But the cuts to the popular children’s health insurance program probably could still be filibustered because they are so-called mandatory programs rather than annual appropriations.

In 1982, the General Accounting Office, a watchdog arm of Congress, said that “In our view, the Impoundment Control Act does not authorize impoundments of funds for these (mandatory) programs.”