Posted on 01/23/2017 7:27:15 AM PST by Mariner
Donald Trump may be headed into a big fight with Republican lawmakers with his plans for dramatic cuts to federal spending.
Trump transition officials are combing through conservative budgets to find ways to save money in an effort to get rid of the “tremendous waste, fraud and abuse” that Trump pledged to eliminate during the campaign.
Many of the proposals that Trump’s team are reviewing would gain support from a majority of conservative House Republicans, who have sought to cut the federal deficit by scrapping government programs they view as unnecessary.
But some of Trump’s targets have fans in the GOP-controlled Congress, particularly in the Senate.
Trump's team is working with the Office of Management and Budget to lay the groundwork for the new administration’s initial budget proposal, which is expected to reach Congress in the next 45 days.
In their search for savings, Team Trump is relying on proposals outlined last year by the Heritage Foundation in its “Blueprint for Balance: a federal budget for 2017.”
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
Put the old-GOP Congress people in the position of having to defend higher spending in opposition to Trump wanting to cut it. A midterm election is coming up in 2 years, we’ll see who wins.
The very reason we have PRESIDENT TRUMP!!!! The GOPe will get there asses handed to them!
Almost every spending program had some republican support but it is time for republicans to stop governing like democrats.
View from heavily fed job dependent Virginia...
Not so important to Senators. Our Dem Senators will be hurt by the cuts.
Maybe cost us one NOVA/near NOVA representative.
Locally, could have some small impact.
All-in-all a good thing for the Party here.
Should be done immediately so other events will soften the impact before next elections.
I don’t think there will be as much problem as people think. If rino ryan and turkey neck McConnell, don’t come up with a real cuts, Trump can do it on his own without a budget and with continuing resolutions. Trump would have to prioritize during this process, so this would be his chance to cut and gut on his own. Quite a few in congress want the infrastructure programs and defense spending and this won’t happen without a budget.
Cut Congressional budget/staff 20%
But some of Trump’s targets have fans in the GOP-controlled Congress, particularly in the Senate.
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That’s because there are far too many Democrats in R jerseys in the Senate.
In 2018, Corker, Hatch, Heller and Flake need to be replaced.
They betrayed the citizen with their vote for Gang of Eight.
Yep. That, in a nutshell, is everything that is wrong with the Republican Party. Republicans talk on and on and on about limited government and cutting spending and resisting government intruding on our lives and then they do absolutely nothing about cutting the budget. Why? Because they don't want to. They like government. They like their pet programs. They don't think its a priority. It is why conservative voters have been so frustrated for the past 8 years. Hell, its why we have been so disappointed for 16 years. George Bush was no better. He talked a good game but when it came to cutting spending, he was horrible. He set the stage for Obama's spending binge with his own spending binge. Cutting our current budget by 10% should be an absolute no-brainer. It should be easy given how much it has increased over the past 16 years.
Trump is in a great position to do away with this omnibus spending bill nonsense. He can request a military budget, an infrastructure budget, etc. Perhaps require no bill longer than 499 pages.
I was thinking about this situation last night.
Let’s say they pass a budget that includes a discretionary increase of 5% over last year.
Can’t Trump order the departments to spend 10% less than last year? I mean, is he obligated to spend the money is he?
The Executive is NOT obligated or bound to spend as much as the Congress allocates.
Unless the budget law says funds “must” be expended on certain items, as is the case with entitlements.
Trump can have his cabinet cut 20% across the board in every discretionary dept. Though there are some personnel actions that require Congressional approval...like refusing to deal with Unions, benefits, mass layoffs etc.
But Trump can get around those by insisting on wording changes in any/every new budget and can win them easily in trade for something the Republican commies want.
Like airports in Alaska.
No surprise; in fact, completely predictable.
For the most part, we’re dealing with Republicans, not conservatives.
They only act like they’re for smaller government when they know there’s no chance a vote for budget cutting will carry the day. If they can get away with a “show vote” for massive cuts that they know is predestined to go nowhere, they will be all over it.
How I wish Dave Brat was Speaker of the House and Ted Cruz was Majority Leader of the Senate. With Ryan and McConnell in charge, any dramatic swing to a smaller government will mean fighting the Dims and then fighting the Repubs.
Trump will force the USSC to deal with Impoundment.
It is clearly within the Executive purview.
SCOTUS has already dealt with impoundment in 1974, which from a legal point of view, is merely a line item veto.
SCOTUS never heard the case.
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