House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer called President Trump’s requested spending clawbacks a “charade” Monday, on the grounds that the cuts would reduce federal spending by only $1 billion.
Last week, Trump sent an official request to Congress to rescind $15 billion in funds that haven’t been spent. The request, favored by House Republican leadership, allows for expedited consideration in Congress, meaning that Senate Democrats could not block the cuts through the filibuster.
Yet, on Friday, the Congressional Budget Office said in an official estimate of the proposal that it would result in the government spending only $1 billion less over the long term. That’s because most of the proposed clawbacks apply to funding that Congress appropriated but that agencies haven’t spent, and that the CBO expects that the agencies never would have spent most of it.
The report “reveals Republicans’ rescission argument for the charade it is,” said Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat.
Hoyer also compared the $1 billion in spending cuts to the $1.8 trillion price tag for the Republican-passed tax law.
The Trump administration, has said the rescissions package is just the first of spending cuts that Trump will request under the special procedure.
