House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer said on Tuesday morning that recent efforts on the part of the White House and Republican lawmakers to retroactively cut already-authorized spending would undermine future bipartisan negotiations.
“It would undermine the belief that your negotiating partner had the integrity that once the deal was made, to stick with the deal,” Hoyer said during a briefing with reporters.
Advancing the legislation would enable congressional Republicans to cut spending—some of it passed in a massive omnibus spending bill signed into law last month—through a procedural tool known as rescissions. Washington Post’s Mike DeBonis reports the effort is being spearheaded by Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy in tandem with the White House, and would target at least $30 billion in cuts.
In contrast to their balanced budget amendment, which is up for a vote in the House on Thursday and would require unfilibusterable support in the Senate and three-fourths of the states to become law, the rescissions concept appears more feasible. GOP leaders would need only a simple majority of 51 votes to pass such a measure in the Senate, where they currently hold 51 seats.
Still, its odds are slim—most Senate Republicans on Monday night were wary of the strategy, expressing concerns that it could poison the well in future appropriations efforts, which often require cooperation on both sides of the aisle.
“To try to undo it after it’s just been signed into law strikes me as ill-advised,” said Maine Republican Susan Collins. She added that passing a rescissions measure could make future bipartisan collaboration “very difficult.” And Bob Corker said that while he would vote for a rescissions bill if he was the one who wrote it, the current effort amounts to “a bunch of window dressing.”
“It’s all for show, as is the balanced budget amendment,” said Corker. “It just gives cover to people to keep doing the destructive things that we’re doing.”
