President Trump is not a politician (although he obviously has a fairly quick learning curve). He is a businessman. We are about to see exactly what that means.
The Daily Signal posted an article today about President Trump’s request to Congress to cancel $15 billion in spending. First of all–I love the request. We will see what happens next.
The article reports:
“Tomorrow the president is going to be using his authority under the Impoundment Control Act to send up the largest rescissions package in history from a president,” a senior administration official said Monday evening on a conference call.
“This first package will be the first of several,” the senior official said. “It will be designed to go after unobligated balances, things that have not been spent and programs from prior years.”
Although the White House Office of Management and Budget does not seek to rescind spending in Congress’ recently passed $1.3 trillion omnibus bill, the official said, the administration will do that later.
The article noted that rescission on the most recently passed omnibus bill will come later.
The article explains how the process works:
To start the rescission process, a president must send a request or requests to Congress. Once he does so, the lawmakers have 45 in-session days to act.
Lawmakers introduce rescissions as legislation in both the House and Senate and refer them to a committee; if the committee doesn’t act in 25 days, the rescissions may be thrown out.
Debate is limited to two hours in the House and 10 hours in the Senate, the Conservative Partnership Institute notes in a report.
The process cannot be used to cut mandatory spending, including for entitlement programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and food stamps.
Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, said rescinded spending ought to reduce the deficit and pave the way for a bill to repair the nation’s infrastructure.
“I would like to see a commitment to say, everything that we save over and above this $11 billion will go 50 percent for debt reduction and 50 percent toward an infrastructure bill,” Davidson said before the number was finalized. “And I think that would be a great start to a infrastructure [bill] and a great way to make sure the president doesn’t have to sign another bill that is at the same level.”
All members of Congress need to understand that the massive spending bills that increase our debt are a national security risk. It is time that Congress began to take action to mitigate that risk.
