Politics

White House Looking To Roll Back $25 Billion From Massive Spending Bill

No featured image available

President Donald Trump’s administration is going to roll out a recision package in the coming weeks that will roll back $25 billion from the $1.3 trillion spending bill Congress passed last month, a source with first-hand knowledge told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

“I will never sign another bill like this again. I’m not going to do it again. Nobody read it. It’s only hours old. Some people don’t even know what is in it. $1.3 trillion dollars–it is the second largest ever,” the president said in late March when he signed the Republicans’ spending bill.

The White House was expected to release a recision package — a request to rescind funds Congress previously appropriated — Tuesday, but that did not materialize. The administration was reportedly looking at rolling back between $30 and $60 billion from the $1.3 trillion spending bill.

Trump proposed a 2018 budget that was, notably, $114 billion less in domestic spending than what Congress passed in March. The president has since expressed outrage about the deal Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan struck with Democratic leadership, characterizing it as a back door deal that illustrates Washington’s dysfunctional working environment.

The president even threatened to veto the bill only hours before he signed it into law, calling it a “waste of money.”

A recision package would make its way from the White House to the House and Senate appropriations committees, where lawmakers would have up to 25 days to amend, approve or shoot down the president’s proposal.

If lawmakers on the respective appropriation committees fail to do something within the 25 day timeframe, the package would likely make its way out of committee, where the full House and Senate bodies would have the opportunity to act.

House and Senate lawmakers would have 45 days to consider the recision package. If they disprove of the president’s proposal, the White House would then be forced release the withheld funds to the federal agencies.

The package would fail if either appropriations committee or the House or Senate bodies shoot it down. The one potential caveat working in the president’s favor is that lawmakers can approve the package with a simple-majority vote.

Follow Robert Donachie on Twitter and Facebook

Send tips to robert@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.