{"id":11434,"date":"2025-07-18T08:46:48","date_gmt":"2025-07-18T08:46:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/hill-republicans-brace-for-another-grueling-fight-over-trumps-spending-cuts\/"},"modified":"2025-07-18T08:46:48","modified_gmt":"2025-07-18T08:46:48","slug":"hill-republicans-brace-for-another-grueling-fight-over-trumps-spending-cuts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/hill-republicans-brace-for-another-grueling-fight-over-trumps-spending-cuts\/","title":{"rendered":"Hill Republicans brace for another grueling fight over Trump\u2019s spending cuts"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Congressional Republicans have passed Donald Trump\u2019s $9 billion rescissions package, capping a painful ordeal that put even members who supported it in a tough spot.<\/p>\n

Now, many Republicans are wincing at the prospect of having to do it all over again.<\/p>\n

White House budget director Russ Vought said Thursday that a second request to rescind congressionally approved spending is likely coming soon. That will mean another bitter go-round on an issue that inflamed GOP institutionalists who worry about the administration\u2019s steady encroachment on Congress\u2019 power of the purse \u2014 even as many fiscal hawks embraced the move to cut spending in any way possible.<\/p>\n

Some Republicans think next time will be different. They believe the White House understands, after multiple warnings from lawmakers, that another norm-shattering rescissions package couldn\u2019t land in GOP laps without a lot more transparency around what, exactly, the administration wanted Congress to cut.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019ll probably take a different approach,\u201d Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) said in an interview Thursday, adding, \u201cI think the lesson on this one is, we need to be including the chair and making sure we\u2019re working together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mullin was referring to Sen. Susan Collins, the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee. The Maine Republican was so piqued that she voted against the package alongside just one other GOP senator, fellow appropriator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. The Appropriations Committee chair cited qualms with both the nature of the original, $9.4 billion spending cut request and the information deficit around the scale and scope of that request.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere can\u2019t be too much communication; there can\u2019t be too much information with senators. \u2026 We\u2019ve got to obviously make sure that everybody feels like they’re getting all the information they need,\u201d Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.), who spearheaded the rescissions process in the Senate, said in an interview Thursday about lessons learned.<\/p>\n

This was something former Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell was clamoring for. He ultimately supported the rescissions bill on final passage, but made his irritation with the administration clear after opposing a procedural vote to advance it.<\/p>\n

\u201cOMB is the problem. They won’t tell us how they’re going to apply the cut,\u201d the Kentucky Republican said of the Office of Management and Budget this week. \u201cI want to make it clear I don’t have any problem with reducing spending. \u2026 They would like a blank check is what they would like, and I don’t think that’s appropriate.\u201d<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s not clear whether the White House is, in fact, prepared to change its approach. At a Christian Science Monitor breakfast with reporters Thursday morning, Vought appeared unrepentant about the posture the OMB had taken in spearheading the $9 billion spending cut request, which would slash public broadcasting and global health initiatives.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe appropriations process has to be less bipartisan,\u201d Vought said.<\/p>\n

Without a course correction from the administration, there\u2019s no guarantee Republicans would welcome another interruption of their legislative agenda to conduct another exercise that exposes them to Democratic attacks or forces them to potentially cross the president.<\/p>\n

That Congress is now entering the pivotal weeks before the Sept. 30 deadline to avoid a government shutdown could further diminish the enthusiasm for another rescissions package.<\/p>\n

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) was noncommittal this week when asked about Congress signing off on additional funding cuts, pointing instead to the appropriations process as his top priority.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll see what the future holds, but the goal right now is to get into the appropriations process. Let’s start marking up bills, trying to get them on the floor,\u201d Thune said. \u201cSo my hope would be that that’s the way we deal with a lot of these issues.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.), a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, also suggested his priorities were shifting as the funding cliff deadline approaches. Asked what appetite his colleagues had for more rescissions packages, Hoeven said it \u201cdepends who you ask.\u201d While they could try to do rescissions and appropriations, \u201cI want to get the approps process going,\u201d Hoeven said.<\/p>\n

Even Schmitt, who confirmed that \u201cadditional rescissions are being contemplated,\u201d conceded the Senate is now facing a major scheduling crunch.<\/p>\n

Democrats are also warning that pursuing more GOP-only rescissions packages could blow up bipartisan government funding talks, with trust between the two parties already eroding in light of Vought\u2019s latest comments.<\/p>\n

Top Senate Appropriations Democrat Patty Murray (Wash.), during an Appropriations Committee meeting after Vought\u2019s comments, called the GOP\u2019s multi-part rescissions push a \u201cdangerous new precedent.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBipartisanship does not end with any one line being crossed,\u201d she said. \u201cIt erodes over time, bit by bit. And frankly I am alarmed by how quickly that erosion is happening.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the same time, GOP leaders may have no choice but to plow ahead, especially in the House. Speaker Mike Johnson, his top lieutenants and Trump himself have repeatedly promised votes on an elaborate patchwork of more rescissions packages, party-line reconciliation bills and spending cuts in government funding measures. They did so to appease fiscal hawks who balked at the trillions in new spending in the just-enacted Trump megabill.<\/p>\n

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), a close ally of Trump, said in an interview earlier this month that she\u2019s discussed with the president and Republican leadership a \u201cmulti-step plan\u201d to cut spending that includes \u201cmassive rescissions\u201d and more reconciliation bills.<\/p>\n

Vought indicated the White House is well along in planning the next rescissions package. While Mullin said that Republicans are \u201cnot putting the cart too far before the horse\u201d in planning what could be included, some members have had \u201chigh-level brainstorming\u201d sessions with the White House budget chief on the subject.<\/p>\n

Vought has also already started calling GOP senators and is getting an eager reception from some of his Hill allies.<\/p>\n

Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said in an interview Thursday that he pushed Vought during a closed-door lunch Tuesday to send additional spending cut packages to Capitol Hill. The budget director, he added, called him on Wednesday morning and said, according to Kennedy, \u201canother is coming your way.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m ready to gobble them up,\u201d Kennedy added, before imitating a turkey: \u201cGobble, gobble.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cassandra Dumay, Jennifer Scholtes and Katherine Tully McManus contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Congressional Republicans have passed Donald Trump\u2019s $9 billion rescissions package, capping a painful ordeal that put even members who supported it in a tough spot. Now, many Republicans are wincing at the prospect of having to do it all over again. White House budget director Russ Vought said Thursday that a second request to rescind […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11434"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11434\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}