Sarah Ferris, Budget and Appropriations Reporter at Politico and David Hawkings, Senior Editor of CQ Roll Call, discuss a possible plan to rescind some spending from last month’s omnibus, and how the debate over the FY19 budget could play out.
One month after President Trump signed the 2018 omnibus budget deal, he is now trying to roll back some spending provisions that were crucial to passing the legislation. This executive cutback has some support in Congress from Senate Republicans, but not nearly enough to pass. It’s just not likely to get past the House. We will see at least a couple of days or weeks of debate on this in the House. There’s not much going on in the house this summer,” said Sarah Ferris, budget and appropriations reporter at Politico. This is going to be a key messaging point, especially for some of the Republican leaders who are jockeying to replace Speaker Paul Ryan. They are going to be trying to ‘out‑fiscally conservative’ each other in the House.” While the possibility of revisiting the 2018 omnibus is debated in the House, the next big spending bill looms. With the October 1st deadline for FY19 funding five months away, it’s likely that another big budget battle will occur. “The easier way to have this fight is not about fiscal ’18… The administration probably can’t get all of the money they’ve been given out the door between now and October. What Congress would be better suited to do, in terms of making a political statement and getting something into law, is to concentrate on not spending as much money again in fiscal ’19,” said David Hawkings, Senior Editor of CQ Roll Call.
