Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the Senate will consider voting on President Trump’s measure to cut the federal budget by $15 billion through the rarely used Impoundment Control Act.
“If the House is able to pass a rescission package, we’ll take a look at it,” said McConnell, R-Ky.
House Republicans are getting behind the legislation, which would eliminate budget funds that have long been dormant.
The plan gained GOP support Tuesday after it became clear that the it leaves intact the recently passed $1.3 trillion fiscal 2018 budget deal and the bipartisan, two-year agreement on spending caps. Many GOP lawmakers were opposed to making changes to that agreement.
“It does not breach the bipartisan agreement we reached on the caps deal,” McConnell said Tuesday.
Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney outlined the proposal to House GOP lawmakers on Tuesday morning and GOP leaders touted it afterwards.
Rep. Chris Collins, R-N.Y., said the House will take up the measure “very soon.”
Democrats oppose the rescission plan and point to $7 billion in cuts to CHIP, the federal children’s health insurance program. But GOP lawmakers argued the CHIP funding and other money has been left unused and can no longer be spent, and that it therefore does not harm to claw that money back.
