The White House is ignoring warnings from worried Hill Republicans and moving ahead with plans to cut billions of dollars from the massive spending bill that Congress passed in late March, after President Donald Trump has spent weeks grousing about the legislation.

Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney — himself a former congressman — is taking the lead on developing the rollback proposal, according to eight current and former administration officials and Republicans close to the White House. The White House expects to release it around May 1, according to one administration official.


These officials anticipate the White House could propose slashing anywhere from $30 billion to $60 billion dollars from the $1.3 trillion dollar spending bill passed for this year — even as Republican lawmakers are openly asking the president not to re-open the negotiations.

“The president is frustrated with omnibus. I also know that his base is frustrated with the omnibus,” said Paul Winfree, who served as Trump’s director of budget policy and deputy director of the Domestic Policy Council until he resigned in December to return to The Heritage Foundation. “The main question is: How big will they go?”

The White House has not reached the point yet of circulating a list of areas to cut — though administration officials and congressional aides anticipate the suggestions will involve cuts to foreign aid and nondiscretionary domestic programs targeted in the president’s recent budget.

In a statement, Mulvaney said the administration “will work with like-minded partners on Capitol Hill to see how we can reduce wasteful Washington spending within the law.”

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Aiding Mulvaney is House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who is vying to replace Rep. Paul Ryan as he retires from his leadership position as speaker of the House. But Rep. Steve Scalise, the House majority whip, is also interested in the job — potentially complicating the process of trying to cut money from the spending bill, as both men try to curry favor with the president and within their own caucus. Any cuts would also have to pass muster in the Senate, where Republicans hold a 51-49 majority.

Even after Congress passed the spending package, narrowly averting a third shutdown this year, Trump surprised aides by threatening to veto it at the last minute over its increase in domestic spending, which he derided as “a waste of money.”

One administration official said the omnibus bill remained on the president’s mind because he views it as another instance of Washington working in a predictable, dysfunctional way, with lawmakers promising to cut spending, build a border wall, or repeal Obamacare, only to do nothing in the end.

Some Republicans have preemptively warned the White House not to try to re-open the omnibus bill. House Appropriations Chairman Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.) said it would amount to Trump going back on his word and veteran appropriator Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) told POLITICO the idea is “unrealistic and dangerous.”

White House officials stressed that Trump was not the first president to attempt such retroactive cuts under a 1974 law that allows the president to propose to Congress rescinding certain budget authority. Congress then has 45 days to pass a law codifying the cuts, known as rescissions, or the spending remains in effect.

“Many presidents have used rescission authority,” said White House legislative affairs director Marc Short. “Even Bill Clinton used it multiple times and I think it’s a perfectly appropriate mechanism for the executive branch to send back to Congress opportunities to save taxpayer dollars.”

Short nevertheless said that rescissions are not a long-term solution to the problem of massive spending bills.

“What we’ve always been asking is for Congress to do its job and to complete appropriations bills on time,” Short said. “When they don’t, you’re left in a position where the president is asked to sign a giant omnibus or shut down the government. One way to fix this is for Congress to actually have a normal appropriations process.”

The House typically passes appropriations bills, but appropriations legislation usually can’t get passed on the Senate floor, where Democrats have enough votes to block bills. The White House expects the new Senate appropriations chairman, Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), to work with Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to change that, although Republicans’ slim majority makes it unlikely.

Trump has threatened not to support another omnibus going forward. ”I will never sign another bill like this again,” Trump said shortly after signing the omnibus in March. ”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 — $1.3 trillion — it’s the second largest ever.”

His criticisms, levied hours after he issued his veto threat, echoed those that Democrats and Republicans alike regularly lob at omnibus spending bills, which contain all the discretionary funding for the government in one piece of legislation, as opposed to the 12 separate bills that the appropriations process calls for.

But, with Democrats uninterested in working with Republicans ahead of the midterms, the regular appropriations process likely won’t work this year, either. Congress is expected to pass a continuing resolution, maintaining current funding levels, by the next deadline on Sept. 30, 2018. That bill will almost certainly fund the government through the 2018 midterms.

“Theoretically, the Congress should be able to pass individual spending bills and I imagine the House, if not all of them, will pass a good chunk of them. However there’s the Senate and the Dems over in the Senate are going to do the same thing they did in this situation,” said a senior GOP Hill aide. “They have more leverage when you do an omnibus. …. Not to mention they could take the House and try to push any spending bill into the new year.”

“Is he never going to sign an omnibus again? I find that very unlikely,” the aide added. “And frankly, you know, the terms are not going to be as good if the Dems control at least one of the chambers. They’re going to have even more leverage than they have now.”



CLARIFICATION: This story has been updated to clarify the Senate appropriations process.