The Trump Budget - deep cuts

[muckraker10021]

 

[QueEx]

What Ben Carson Thinks About the
~Proposed $6.2B HUD Budget Cut~



President Donald Trump released his budget proposal last week that included a proposed $6.2 billion cut in funding for the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

As HousingWire staffer Ben Lane notes, shortly after the plan was announced, HUD released a statement in support. In part,
HUD stated,

“The blueprint reflects the President’s commitment to support HUD’s critical functions that provide rental assistance to low-income and vulnerable households and to help work-eligible families achieve self-sufficiency.

It also recognizes a greater role for State and local governments, and the private sector to address community and economic development needs.

Moreover, the spending plan supports the longstanding home-ownership mission of the Federal Housing Administration to provide mortgage insurance to credit qualified households.”​

HUD Secretary Ben Carson also came out in favor of the proposed cuts.

“The discretionary budget plan released today by President Trump aligns with Agency plans to provide rental assistance to low-income and vulnerable households and to help families achieve self-sufficiency,” Carson said.

“The budget also promotes fiscal responsibility at HUD by promoting better efficiencies and leveraging IT modernization,” Carson continued. “I look forward to working with the President and remain keenly focused on HUD’s mission and core values.

A more detailed program-by-program budget proposal will be announced in May.
​

Absent from that statement was any reaction to the budget from new HUD Secretary Ben Carson.

So, what does Carson think of the cuts to HUD’s budget?

For one, he’s in favor of them.

In a short statement issues late Thursday by HUD, Carson said that :

the budget furthers the Trump administration’s view of how HUD should operate.

“The discretionary budget plan released today by President Trump aligns with Agency plans to provide rental assistance to low-income and vulnerable households and to help families achieve self-sufficiency,” Carson said.

“The budget also promotes fiscal responsibility at HUD by promoting better efficiencies and leveraging IT modernization,” Carson continued. “I look forward to working with the President and remain keenly focused on HUD’s mission and core values.”​

The statement strikes a bit of a different tone from what Carson said last week, when the rumors of a budget cut for HUD began to circulate.

After those budget figures leaked out, Carson attempted to calm the fears of HUD staff, saying in an email that the numbers being circulated were simply “preliminary numbers” that are likely to change.

Carson’s email stated: Today you may have read preliminary HUD FY18 budget negotiations in national media reports. Please understand that budget negotiations currently underway are very similar to those that have occurred in previous years. This budget process is a lengthy, back and forth process that will continue. It’s unfortunate that preliminary numbers were published but, please take some comfort in knowing that starting numbers are rarely final numbers. Rest assured, we are working hard to support those programs that help so many Americans, focus on our core mission, and ensure that every tax dollar is spent wisely and effectively.

As it turns out, those leaked numbers were correct. Now it’s just a matter of whether Trump’s budget passes or not.

For a more detailed look on what programs would be cut and which ones get a boost under Trump’s budget, click here.


SOURCE: http://www.housingwire.com/articles...-about-the-proposed-62-billion-hud-budget-cut


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[QueEx]

Trump’s budget to defund NeighborWorks America
and other housing programs
Budget to cut funding to 19 independent agencies



President Donald Trump officially announced his budget proposal that would, among many other cuts, slash $6.2 billion from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s funding.

But HUD isn’t the only agency to receive less funding under the new budget plan – some agencies were even defunded entirely.

The real winners in Trump’s budget are transportation, veterans affairs, defense and homeland security.

Within the housing market, one of the independent agencies that will be completely defunded is Neighborhood Reinvestment Corp., also known as NeighborWorks America.

NeighborWorks America is a congressionally chartered nonprofit organization that supports community development in the United States and Puerto Rico and provides access to homeownership and to safe and affordable rental housing.

When asked about Trump’s budget proposal, this was NeighborWork America’s response:

The NeighborWorks America model is an example of successful public-private partnership with a decades-long track record.

In fiscal year 2016 alone, NeighborWorks America financial and technical support provided to the more than 245 nonprofit businesses that comprise the NeighborWorks network has:

· Maintained or created more than 53,000 jobs

· Created more than 21,000 new homeowners

· Assisted 360,000 families with affordable housing

· Repaired more than 55,000 homes, and

· Provided counseling and financial education to more than 116,000 people​

Investment by NeighborWorks America into these nonprofit organizations is leveraged with other capital from the private sector, delivering billions of dollars of overall economic impact annually and adding to the security of rural, urban and suburban communities all across America.

In June last year, the agency awarded $40 million to 21 state housing finance agencies, 19 HUD-approved housing counseling intermediaries and 60 community-based NeighborWorks organizations to provide counseling to families and individuals who are working with their servicers to avoid foreclosures.

And back in 2013, NeighborWorks announced its foreclosure program rescued 1.6 million homeowners from losing their home. That same year, it ranked No. 3 among the top-100 homebuilders.

This chart from Bloomberg shows the funding cuts for all programs as well as proposed increases in the budget:



(Source: Office of Management and Budget, Bloomberg)

Here’s the complete list of programs Trump’s budget would cut, according to an article by Elaine Godfrey for The Atlantic:

• African Development Foundation
• Appalachian Regional Commission
• Chemical Safety Board
• Corporation for National and Community Service
• Corporation for Public Broadcasting
• Delta Regional Authority
• Denali Commission
• Institute of Museum and Library Services
• Inter-American Foundation
• U.S. Trade and Development Agency
• Legal Services Corporation
• National Endowment for the Arts
• National Endowment for the Humanities
• Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation
• Northern Border Regional Commission
• Overseas Private Investment Corporation
• United States Institute of Peace
• United States Interagency Council on Homelessness
• Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

And to see 61 other programs the budget will defund, click here.


SOURCE: http://www.housingwire.com/articles...ghborworks-america-and-other-housing-programs


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[QueEx]

 

[thoughtone]

But the Clinton foundation.

 

[MASTERBAKER]

 

[QueEx]

Republicans plan massive cuts to programs for the poor

Under pressure to balance the budget and align with Trump, the House GOP
has its eye on food stamps, welfare and perhaps even veterans’ benefits.

A woman pays for her groceries using a food stamp program at a supermarket in West New York, N.J., in 2015. | AP Photo


p o l i t i c o
May 15, 2017


House Republicans just voted to slash hundreds of billions of dollars in health care for the poor as part of their Obamacare replacement. Now, they’re weighing a plan to take the scalpel to programs that provide meals to needy kids and housing and education assistance for low-income families.

President Donald Trump’s refusal to overhaul Social Security and Medicare — and his pricey wish-list for infrastructure, a border wall and tax cuts — is sending House budget writers scouring for pennies in politically sensitive places: safety-net programs for the most vulnerable.

The Oklahoma Republican, however, acknowledged that mandatory spending reductions could become “very tough issues” — though he declined to name which programs would see major cuts: “These are hard for anybody, no matter where you’re at on the political spectrum.”

While budget writers are well aware of the sensitive nature of their proposal, they feel they have no choice if they want to balance the budget in a decade, which they’ve proposed for years, and give Trump what he wants.

Enraged by Democrats claiming victory after last month’s government funding agreement, White House officials in recent weeks have pressed Hill Republicans to include more Trump priorities in the fiscal 2018 blueprint.

House Budget Republicans hope to incorporate those wishes and are expected, for example, to budget for Trump’s infrastructure plan. Tax reform instructions will also be included in the budget, paving the way for both chambers to use the powerful budget reconciliation process to push a partisan tax bill through Congress on simple majority votes, as well as the $400 billion in mandatory cuts.

“The critique last time was that we didn’t embed enough Trump agenda items into our budget,” said Rep. Dave Brat (R-Va.), a budget panel member. Trump has "made it clear it will be embedded in this budget. … And so people will see a process much more aligned with President Trump’s agenda in this forthcoming budget.”

New spending, however, makes already tough math even trickier for a party whose mantra is “balance the budget in 10 years.” Lawmakers need to cut roughly $8 trillion to meet that goal, budget experts say. And while a quarter of their savings in previous budgets came from repealing Obamacare and slicing $1 trillion from Medicaid, Republicans cannot count on those savings anymore because their health care bill sucked up all but $150 billion of that stash — relatively speaking, mere pocket change to play with.

Republicans’ first reflex would be to turn to entitlement reform to find savings. Medicare and Social Security, after all, account for the lion’s share of government spending and more than 70 percent of all mandatory spending.



FULL STORY: http://www.politico.com/story/2017/...-programs-food-stamps-welfare-veterans-238314

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[thoughtone]

 

[MASTERBAKER]

 

[QueEx]

 

[QueEx]

Trump releases budget hitting his own voters hardest

The president's proposal for next year's federal spending calls for more than $1 trillion in cuts to social programs, including farm aid.

Donald Trump, whose populist message and promises to help American workers propelled him to the White House, issued a budget proposal on Tuesday that instead takes aim at the social safety net on which many of his supporters rely.

Rather than breaking with Washington precedent, Trump’s spending blueprint follows established conservative orthodoxy, cutting taxes on the wealthy, boosting defense spending and taking a hatchet to programs for the poor and disabled – potentially hurting many of the rural and low-income Americans who voted him into office.


http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/22/trump-budget-cut-social-programs-238696


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[muckraker10021]

President Trump's War On Children

This cruel draconian budget destroys the future live prospects of 75% of all America's citizens & kills the once vaunted "American Dream"

by Marian Wright Edelman | May 31, 2017 |
http://www.blackvoicenews.com/2017/05/31/president-trumps-cruel-war-on-children/


Our nation’s budget should reflect our nation’s professed values, but President Trump’s 2018 Federal Budget, “A New Foundation for America’s Greatness,” radically does the opposite. This immoral budget declares war on America’s children, our most vulnerable group, and the foundation of our nation’s current and future economic, military and leadership security. It cruelly dismantles and shreds America’s safety net laboriously woven over the past half century to help and give hope to the 14.5 million children struggling today in a sea of poverty, hunger, sickness, miseducation, homelessness and disabilities. It slashes trillions of dollars from health care, nutrition and other critical programs that give poor babies and children a decent foundation in life to assure trillions of dollars in tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires and powerful corporations who do not deserve massive doses of government support.

The cruel Trump budget invests more in our military — already the most costly in the world — but denies vulnerable children and youths the income, health care, food, housing and education supports they need to become strong future soldiers to defend our country.
Seventy-one percent of our 17- to 24-year-olds are now ineligible for military service because of health and education deficits.

It seeks to build a wall to keep immigrants out by slashing supports for those inside who can be counted on to help staff our businesses and factories and other services. This budget creates more inequality and less opportunity for those struggling to make ends meet and is a grave injustice.

President Trump invests in fighting those he sees as outside enemies through weapons and walls and turns his back on the internal enemies that threaten the basic domestic needs of our people — health care, housing, education and jobs that pay living wages. The Congress and the people of the United States must reject President Trump’s 2018 budget and the mean spirited values it reflects.

It declares war on children and working people struggling to support their families by ignoring even their most basic needs and gives trillions to those who do not need massive government support — especially at a time of record wealth and income inequality.

TRUMP'S 2018 budget:

• 
  
  
  • Slashes $610 billion over 10 years from Medicaid, which nearly 37 million children rely on for a healthy start in life and which pays for nearly half of all births and ensures coverage for 40 percent of our children with special health care needs. The budget also assumes passage of the more than $800 billion additional cuts in Medicaid included in the American Health Care Act for a total Medicaid massacre of more than $1.4 trillion over 10 years.
  
  
  • Rips $5.7 billion from CHIP (Children’s Health Insurance Program), which covers nearly 9 million children in working families ineligible for Medicaid. The proposed cap on CHIP funding for families at 250 percent of the poverty level threatens coverage for millions of children in the 24 states and the District of Columbia that have chosen to extend coverage to children in families with slightly higher incomes.
  
  
  • Snatches food out of the mouths and stomachs of hungry children by slicing $193 billion over 10 years from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which some still call food stamps. SNAP feeds nearly 46 million people including nearly 20 million children.
  
  
  • This cut is an unprecedented 25 percent reduction in a core safety net program that in 2014 lifted 4.7 million people, including 2.1 million children, out of poverty. For the 4.9 million households, 1.3 million with children, with no cash income who rely only on SNAP to keep the wolves of hunger from their doors, these cuts would be a catastrophic assault.
  
  
  • Chops $22 billion over 10 years from TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Program) including $6 billion that eliminates the TANF Contingency Fund which helps support some of our neediest families.
  
  
  • Slashes programs to assist families with housing and end homelessness by $7.4 billion, a 15 percent cut for 2018 including $2.3 billion from Housing Choice Vouchers, which would leave more than 250,000 low income households without them; $1.8 billion — nearly 29 percent — from public housing already in desperate need of repair and expansion; and $133 million — 5.6 percent — from homeless assistance grants.
  
  
  • Whacks $72 billion over 10 years from the Supplemental Security Income Program (SSI), which more than 8 million children and adults with the most severe disabilities depend on to keep going.
  
  
  • Despite the President’s promise not to cut Social Security, his budget cuts $48 billion from Social Security Disability Insurance which assists, among others, grandparents and other relatives raising children because their parents cannot care for them.
  
  
  • Cuts $40 billion over 10 years from the Child Tax Credit (CTC) and Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) by barring tax-paying undocumented immigrant workers, many with American citizen children, from benefiting from the Child Tax Credit unless they have a Social Security number, and making it harder for them to benefit from the Earned Income Tax Credit created to reward hard work and help parents support their children.
  
  
  • Slashes job training programs by $1.1 billion, or 40 percent, over 10 years for youths, adults and dislocated workers. It denigrates the concept of public service jobs by eliminating the Corporation for National and Community Service, and with it AmeriCorps, Vista and Senior Corps.
  
  
  • Cuts federal education funding $9.2 billion in 2018 alone at a time when a majority of children in all racial and economic groups cannot read or compute at grade level.
  
  
  • It slashes $143 billion over 10 years from student loans by eliminating the loan program that encourages graduates to take public service jobs and restricts other programs that subsidize college education for first generation college students and others from low income families. And it proposes to add $1 billion in new funding for the Title I program for disadvantaged students, which has historically supplemented resources for students in schools in areas of concentrated poverty, but for the wrong reason.
  
  
  • It proposes to fund a new school choice initiative to let children draw Title I funds away from schools in the neediest areas and take them to schools in higher income areas.
  
  
  • Shears $54 billion in 2018 ($1.6 trillion over 10 years) in non-defense discretionary programs which include a broad range of health, early childhood, education, child welfare and juvenile justice programs as well as environmental protection, foreign assistance, medical and scientific research and other federal government programs. The Trump budget would reduce spending for these important programs 2 percent a year for the next 10 years.
  
  
  • Zeroes out funding for the Legal Services Corporation to deny the poor their only option to defend themselves against injustice.
  
  
  • Eliminates core programs that offer extra assistance to low income children, families and communities including the Social Service Block Grant ($1.4 billion in 2018 alone, $16.3 billion over 10 years); the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program to ward off heat in the summer and cold in winter months ($3.4 billion); the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s HOME, Community Development Block Grant, Indian Community Development Block Grant, and Choice Neighborhood programs ($4.1 billion), and the National Housing Trust Fund which provides funds to states and local communities to develop affordable rental housing; the Community Services Block Grant (CSBG) programs that include CSBG ($723.6 million), Community Economic Development program ($29. 8 million) and Rural Community Facilities ($6.5 million).
  
  
  • Axes the 21st Century Community Learning Program that offers programs to curb summer learning loss and keep children safe and engaged through after school programs for 1.6 million children; the Preschool Development Grants which went to 18 states to improve and expand access to high-quality preschool for children in high-needs communities; and the Child Care Access Means Parents in School program for parents enrolled in college to assist in child care costs.

At the same time, President Trump’s 2018 Budget includes an estimated $5 trillion tax package for the wealthiest individuals and corporations who neither need nor deserve massive government support and dramatically increases spending on defense and border security. The Trump budget:

• 
  
  
  • Increases base defense spending $54 billion in 2018 alone (and $489 billion over 10 years). That’s $147,945,205 a day, $6,164,384 an hour and $102,739 a minute. The U.S. military budget is already the largest military budget in the world. We spend more on the military than the next eight countries combined (China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, India, France, United Kingdom, Japan, and Germany).
  
  
  • Spends $2.6 billion new dollars on border security including $1.6 billion for a down payment on the President’s proposed obscene wall at the Mexican border estimated to cost $10 to $20 billion before completion and after false campaign promises that the Mexican government would pay.

This draconian budget slashes over $3 trillion dollars in the next decade and tramples America’s values and is anti-child, anti-poor, and anti-low-income working people. It erodes the security of our nation’s future.

President Dwight Eisenhower, a five star general and World War II hero, understood that throwing money at the military could not be an excuse for assaulting the poor and stealing from our children, saying, “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies … a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, and the hope of its children.”

The Trump budget would not pass the test of any great faith or standard of fairness. It must be rejected resoundingly by the Congress and the American people.


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The Trump camarilla's plan for America is to have as many people as possible scrambling for survival as you see in the video below as they become even $$$$$$$$$$$ Wealthier

Drumpf's Moronic "They-Killing-Themselves-With-Opioids & Meth" Voters

The RepubliKlan Party of 2017 is -

• Unapologetically proudly RACIST
• Virulently HOMOPHOBIC
• Anti-Sex Education in schools
• Anti-Birth Control
• Anti- Immigrants (Build a wall, stop ALL Muslims)
• Anti- ANY Minimum Wage increase
• Anti- Student Loans (big cuts in Pell grants; blocked interest rate cut on loans)
• Anti-Abortion Rights (republiklans were silent when Dr. George Tiller was murdered)
• Anti-Consumer Protection (pro-tort reform)
• Anti- Climate Change Science Reality (It's not real it's a communist plot)
• Anti- Environmental Clean-Up (Piyush Jindal of LA blocked law mandating oil corp. clean up of gulf coast)
• Anti- Infrastructure $$$$ Replacement (U.S. bridges & roads are old & crumbling)
• Anti-Regulating The Banksters (want to repeal Dodd-Frank)
• Anti-Social Security Insurance (want to end it & send the existing money to Wall street)
• Anti-Medicare (want to send Grandma into the clutches of the "Health Care Mafia" with a coupon)
• Anti-Unemployment Insurance (want to end it; cut it to a max of 8 weeks))
• Anti- Healthy School Lunch for kids (want to REPEAL Mrs. Obama's healthy lunch reforms)
• Anti-Education Standards (republiklans want to close the Dept. of Education & teach biblical creationism)
• Anti-W.I.C. (republiklan congress recently cut money for Women Infants & Children program)
• Anti- Environmental Conservation Laws (want to close the EPA & burn MORE coal)
• Anti-Food Saftey Inspections (republiklan congress recently cut US food saftey budget)
• Anti- Ingredient Labels on Food (republiklans don't want you to know)
• Anti-Progressive Taxation (republiklans against raising the 15% tax Millionaires & Billionaires pay)
• Anti-Banning the Death Penalty (278 INNOCENT people released from Death Row since 1989)
• Anti- Restoring Habeas corpus (republiklans NOT against "disappearing" people)
• Anti-Separation Of Church & State (republiklans want to mandate Christian prayer ONLY in schools)
• Anti- Government Funding of Scientific Research (republiklans have slashed funding i.e. stem cell research)
• Anti-Feminism (woman should be submissive to men; it's in the bible)
• Anti-Affirmative Action (republiklans say "there is NO racism in AmeriKKKa)
• Anti-Department of Labor (republiklans believe overtime pay should be abolished)
• Anti-Small Business Administration (want to abolish it)
• Anti-Substantially Increasing Foreign Aid (republiklan congress just cut food aid to AFRICA)
• Anti-Government Student College Tuition Grants (republiklans want to dramatically cut PELL grants & other Education programs)
• Anti-ANY Gun Control
• Anti- NON-Christian Religion Tolerance
• Anti- Universal Health Care
• Anti- Ban Against Torture (republiklans support "rectal" feeding & slicing of genitals)
• Anti- ANY Cut In Military Spending
• Anti- Pay Increase For US Soldiers (republiklans consistently vote NO)
• Anti- Increase in Veterans Benefits (republiklans want to convert military pensions into 401K's)
• Anti- Equalizing Penalty for Crack/ Powder Cocaine Conviction
• Anti- Ending Draconian mandatory loooong sentences for drug possession
• Anti- Womens Health/ Well-Women Care (republiklans vote to defund Planned Parenthood)
• Anti- Legislation Banning Outsourcing (republiklans voted AGAINST law prohibiting outsourcing by companies $$$$$ bailed out by U.S. taxpayers)

 

[QueEx]

President Trump's War On Children

I "liked" this post because of what the Poster is obviously pointing out;
but definitely not because of the sad state of affairs, for which it stands.

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[QueEx]

GOP may skip budget, kneecapping 2018 ambitions

Lacking the votes and fearing political blowback, Republicans are
unlikely to deploy powerful budget procedures to enact their agenda.​

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has argued that he cannot pass controversial deficit-reduction legislation using powerful budget
procedures with his new 51-vote majority. | Win McNamee/Getty Images


Politico
By RACHAEL BADE
and SARAH FERRIS
01/10/2018

Republican leaders are considering skipping passage of a GOP budget this year — a blow to the party’s weakened fiscal hawks that would squash all 2018 efforts to revamp entitlements or repeal Obamacare.

White House and Hill GOP leaders discussed the possibility of foregoing the painful budget process during last weekend’s Camp David legislative summit, according to four sources familiar with the talks. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has argued that he cannot pass controversial deficit-reduction legislation using powerful budget procedures with his new 51-vote majority — and wasn’t even sure he could find the votes for a fiscal blueprint in the first place.

Abandoning the budget, however, would be an embarrassment for Republicans, who for years railed against Democrats when they avoided one of the most basic responsibilities of Congress.

But more importantly, it would mean the GOP’s 2018 agenda would be sharply limited: Only with passage of a joint House-Senate budget can Republicans deploy reconciliation tools, which allow them to circumvent the Senate filibuster and bypass Democrats, as they did on last year’s successful tax bill and failed Obamacare repeal push.

That means no entitlement reform or welfare overhaul in 2018, a key priority for fiscal conservatives eager to shrink the now $20 trillion federal debt. Instead, President Donald Trump wants to focus on enacting a massive infrastructure package with help from Democrats.
And conservatives are not happy about it.

“It’s legislative malpractice to throw reconciliation out the window,” Vice President of Heritage Action for America Dan Holler told POLITICO on Wednesday when asked his opinion on the matter.

Rep. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.), a House Budget Committee member, similarly responded negatively when asked what he thought of the idea: “It’s another data point in a long series of unfortunate data points on fiscal discipline… In the same way a budget is important for determining spending for a family, it’s one of those absolute necessities and basics of financial discipline in government.”

Talks to forgo a GOP budget this year come at a breaking point for many fiscal hawks.

Congressional leaders are knee-deep in bipartisan spending negotiations that are shaping up to be a nightmare for conservatives, potentially raising federal spending by over $200 billion over two years, with few — if any — ways to pay for it. In the same month, Congress also plans to send Trump an $80 billion-plus disaster relief package, the largest of its kind, with no offsets. And just this week, House Republicans announced a plan to debate a return of earmarks, which conservatives have called the “gateway drug” to spending.

It’s the latest sign of the decline of the party’s fiscal conservatives under Trump, who has shown little interest in cutting government spending and has begun to mold the party into his own image. The discussions also simply reflect the reality of the GOP’s slimmed-down Senate majority and the difficult politics of an election year that threatens Republicans’ hold on Congress.

GOP sources familiar with the discussion have cautioned that the 2018 agenda is far from set in stone. What’s more, leaders haven’t ruled out trying to pass messaging budgets in their own respective chambers, even if they don’t adopt a unified budget that allows for reconciliation.


The House, for instance, will probably have to try to pass such a document to keep their more conservative conference happy. But GOP leaders are under no illusion that such a plan could pass the Senate.

It’s one of the reasons some GOP leaders have discussed “deeming” top-line spending numbers — simply setting total spending levels without passing a budget. One idea that’s surfaced includes “deeming” numbers as part of any budget accord with Democrats in the coming days and weeks.

That’s unlikely to halt the push from some House Republicans for a budget, however. House conservatives say they are itching for a fiscal brawl in 2018, even if it means going up against GOP leaders.

Many House Republicans are still stung from last year’s budget standoff with the Senate, when the House was forced to abandon plans for steep cuts to “mandatory” programs and swallow the Senate’s deficit-busting blueprint. House conservatives are even fine with slicing deep into politically-sensitive programs like Medicaid, food stamps or low-income housing subsidies to write a budget that reaches balance in ten years — a task made exponentially more difficult after the GOP passed its tax plan that boosts federal deficits by over $1 trillion over a decade.

In fact, House Budget Committee members have already started discussing priorities for their fiscal blueprint, including mandatory spending cuts they want to tackle this year. Rep. Diane Black (R-Tenn.), the outgoing chair of the House Budget Committee, said members have come up to her and said, “‘As soon as we get back, we’ve got to start on this budget again and we’ve got to make sure we do mandatory spending cuts.’”

In a sit-down with POLITICO this week, Black said it would “absolutely” be a mistake for the House to skip a budget this year.


“They’re the problem,” she said, pointing to the Senate. “They don’t seem to have the same energy to get this financial situation under control, and that disturbs me, because you need both sides to do it.”

Rank-and-file lawmakers aren’t the only Republicans who will be unhappy with this outcome. Speaker Paul Ryan was eyeing reconciliation to pursue an ambitious welfare overhaul, though McConnell squashed the notion. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is also one of several Republicans who’ve expressed a desire to take another run at health care using the fast-tracking tool.

Other Republicans seemed baffled that leaders would forfeit such a powerful legislative instrument so quickly.

“They need to change the [Senate] cloture rule, but until they do the only way we’re going to be able to accomplish anything is through reconciliation,” Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.) said. “We have to use reconciliation.”


https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/10/gop-may-skip-budget-kneecapping-2018-ambitions-334946


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