Sen. John McCain says he’s “leaning against” Trump’s nominee for budget director. But if the Arizona Republican bucks his party’s president over the nomination and votes against Mick Mulvaney, it’d be a first in his career.
During his 30-years in the Senate, five presidents from both parties have nominated 14 different candidates to write the White House budget. McCain has never cast a vote against a single budget director.
But McCain is ready to break that streak. On MSNBC yesterday, McCain said he’s “very, very worried” Mulvaney will “continue his efforts to slash the military, which has been cut by 21 percent in the last eight years. I don’t think any of us believe that we’re 21 percent safer.”
In other words, the old war hawk can’t stand a fiscal hawk like Mulvaney. This opposition seems uncharacteristic and perhaps hypocritical after McCain helped advance Democrat nominees who oversaw drastic cuts to military funding.
Most recently, McCain backed both of President Obama’s budget picks. He voted for Shaun Donovan and before that he helped cheerlead Sylvia Burwell’s nomination.
Since taking office, Obama has supervised the drawdown of military dollars. Spending peaked in 2009 at $691 billion, according to stats compiled by the Stockholm International Peace Institute, the sum needed to carry on two wars simultaneously. As Obama heads out the door, spending sits around $596 billion.
Those are steep slashes, ones that McCain has railed against for the last eight years. He just didn’t vote against the OMB directors advising Obama on those spending cuts.
McCain did not oppose any of President Clinton’s OMB directors, either.
(While campaigning for president back in 2008, he missed a vote on Bush nominee, Jim Nussle.)
It’s no secret that McCain has little love for the Trump administration and serious devotion to U.S. armed forces. But it’s odd that he slammed Mulvaney. The aspiring OMB director has opposed increased military spending in the past but during his confirmation hearing he pledged to back Trump’s plan to reboot the military.
After voting for Obama’s OMB directors, it’s odd that McCain won’t offer the same courtesy to his own party.
Philip Wegmann is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
