In its initial proposal outlining the Administration’s budget goals for FY2018, the White House is seeking an increase of $54 billion to $603 billion overall for defense programs. To maintain the overall topline budget number, the Administration is seeking offsets in non-defense related programs.
Federal Relations continues to monitor developments on this front.
Steven Mnuchin, Trump’s nominee for Treasury Secretary, will get a vote around 7 p.m. tonight in what’s become a drawn-out process in the Senate. Following the final vote on Mnunchin there will a procedural vote on on David Shulkin to be Secretary of Veterans Affairs.
Mnunchin is expected to pass and once he does the Treasury Secretary is expected take on a big lift immediately as President Trump has promised to unveil a big tax-cutting plan in coming weeks. Whatever is reveals, it is sure to set off a partisan firestorm. It will fall to Mnuchin to translate the President’s campaign promises on tax relief for all individuals and corporations into legislation that might be approved by a politically polarized Congress.
As early as this week, the Senate is also likely to confirm Rep. Mick Mulvaney as the new White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director. Mulvaney, a founding member of the hardline conservative House Freedom Caucus, is also sure to rankle defense hawks worried about military spending.
Trump has promised to increase defense spending to boost a military force, so even if Mulvaney supports reining in all federal spending, the defense budget is likely to increase by tens of billions of dollars above current levels in each of the next few years. The Pentagon is expect to seek tens of billions of dollars from Congress to implement Trump’s vow to rebuild the military.
It is expected that the Senate will vote on at least on other nominee this week — either Perry, Pruitt, or Zinke — but no other nominees have not been scheduled for a vote thus far.
Meanwhile, the next big nomination fight over President Trump’s Cabinet nominees is moving from Betsy DeVos to Andrew Puzder, who will appear before the Senate HELP Committee on Thursday. The hearing has been delayed four times while the Office of Government Ethics awaited paperwork. It took some time to work out a plan to divest holdings in CKE Restaurants, the fast-food company (parent to the Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s chains) of which Puzder is chairman.
On the other side of the Hill, the House convenes at noon to consider a bill on surveying the boundary along the Red River in Oklahoma and Texas. Later this week, the House is expected to take up five “disapproval resolutions” to roll back rules undertaken during the Obama Administration including two Labor Department rules on savings arrangements for non-governmental employees and a resolution that would disapprove the District of Columbia Council’s approving the Death with Dignity Act of 2016.
It will continue to be a busy week for the House and Senate. Today, the Senate will continue to work on confirmations as four Cabinet positions – Betsy DeVos for Secretary of Education, Senator Jeff Sessions for Attorney General, Rep. Tom Price for Secretary of HHS, and Steven Mnuchin for Secretary of Treasury – are up for full Senate consideration this week. Rep. Mike Mulvany (R-SC), Trump’s nominee to lead the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), is still working his way through the Senate, which could cause some budget complications for FY 2018 (see below).
Senators are expected to move on a House-passed Congressional Review Act resolution nullifying a regulation curbing methane emissions from oil and gas wells on federal lands. Once passed, it will mark the third energy-related rule nullified by the Republican Congress.
Today, the House continues efforts to stop regulations finalized by former President Barack Obama now focusing on the Department of Education. So far, lawmakers have introduced Congressional Review Act resolutions targeting the Obama Administration’s regulations governing teacher preparation programs as well as its accountability rule under the Every Student Succeeds Act.
It is the first Monday in February, which is technically Presidential Budget day. On the first Monday in February, the Administration is statutorily required to submit their budget request for the upcoming fiscal year (in this case FY 2018) to Congress. All recent Presidents (including Obama…multiple times) have missed the statutory deadline for budget submissions in their first year in office. There is no penalty for missing the date and a full budget proposal may not emerge from the White House until April or May.
While a delay in the budget submission is expected for a new Administration, virtually guarantees a delay in the entire FY 2018 appropriations process. Regardless of who controls Congress, lawmakers typically fail to get regular spending bills passed before the start of the new fiscal year, which begins on October 1. This year enjoys the particular complication of not having closed out FY 2017 with the current CR running until April 28th. Congress will have to address FY 2017 and immediately (or concurrently) FY 2018.
The Senate HELP Committee just voted to advance the nominee for Education Secretary, Betsy DeVos. The committee vote was 12-11, which is along party lines.
Two Republicans, Senators Susan Collins (R-ME) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), said that they voted to advance DeVos’ nomination out of committee but still had concerns about her nomination and remained undecided on how they would vote on the Senate floor.
DeVos’ nomination has yet to be schedule for consideration by the full Senate.
Staffers for the Trump transition team have been meeting with career staff at the White House ahead of Friday’s presidential inauguration to outline their plans for shrinking the federal bureaucracy. The proposal takes directly from the Heritage Foundation’s FY 2017 budget blueprint and the Republican Study Committee’s (RSC) FY 2017 Budget Proposal.
While the annual President’s Budget Request is important to set the Administration’s policies and agenda. Congress is ultimately responsible for approving a federal budget and appropriating funds.
The Trump budget, which will not likely be officially unveiled until mid-April, would reduce federal spending by $10.5 trillion over 10 years. The preliminary proposals from the White House budget office will be shared with federal departments and agencies soon after Trump takes the oath of office Friday. Also, Trump’s Cabinet picks have yet to be apprised of the reforms, which would reduce resources within their agencies.
The Commerce and Energy departments would see major reductions in funding, with programs under their jurisdiction either being eliminated or transferred to other agencies. The departments of Transportation, Justice and State would see significant cuts and program eliminations.
The Heritage FY 2017 blueprint, which is reportedly being used as a basis for Trump’s proposed cuts, calls for eliminating several “corporate welfare” programs including:
The total savings from cutting these four programs would amount to nearly $900 million in 2017.
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting would be privatized, while the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities would be eliminated entirely.
At the Department of Justice, the blueprint calls for reducing funding for its Civil Rights and its Environment and Natural Resources divisions and eliminating:
At the Department of Energy, it would roll back funding for nuclear physics and advanced scientific computing research to 2008 levels, and would eliminate
At the State Department’s , funding for the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, the Paris Climate Change Agreement and the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are candidates for elimination.
Many of the specific cuts were included in the 2017 budget adopted by the conservative RSC, a caucus that represents a majority of House Republicans. It is notable, that the RSC budget plan would reduce federal spending by $8.6 trillion over the next decade.
Trump vowed during the campaign not to cut Medicare and Social Security, a pledge that Rep. Tom Price (R-GA), Trump’s nominee to head the Department of Health and Human Services, told lawmakers in testimony Wednesday has not changed.
That said, it could be very difficult to reduce U.S. debt without tackling the entitlement programs. Conservative House budgets have repeatedly included reforms to Medicare and Social Security, arguing they are necessary to save the programs.
This proposal is expected to be met with strong opposition by Democrats.
The Office of Federal Relations will continue to update on this issue.