After Senators Richard Burr (R-NC) and Susan Collins (R-ME) joined the Democrats to block a discharge petition of a rescission bill on Wednesday, the Senate has just two legislative days remaining to approve the list of cuts that President Trump sent to Congress. On May 8, Trump revived the long-dormant rescission process to claw back $15 billion in funding that was previously authorized for specific programs but which remain unspent. Once Congress received the list, the chambers have 45 legislative days to vote on the plan. Implementing these modest spending reductions and a much-needed budget reform would be a win for taxpayers, but the clock is ticking.
The House took up the rescissions in H.R. 3, the Spending Cuts to Expired and Unnecessary Programs Act. The bill modified the President’s original proposal – which NTUF analyzed in detail – by removing the rescissions for combating the spread of the Ebola virus and for Hurricane Sandy disaster aid.
Despite the cries of alarm from spending addicts in Congress and special interest groups, the actual dollars saved from budgetary outlays is much lower than the $15 billion in rescinded budget authority. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the bill’s rescissions of $15 billion in authorizations would reduce outlays by $1.3 billion over ten years. This is because bulk of the funding was authorized years ago and would never be spent. In a few cases, such as the $5 billion rescission in previous year allotments for the Children’s Health Insurance Program, the authorizations have expired and by law the money cannot be spent (for more information, NTUF refuted several myths about the rescissions).
Through irresponsible overspending, the government is on track to pile up trillions in debt over the next decade. Approving the rescissions would make a small dent in the deficit but would go a long-way towards repairing a broken budget process. An additional important benefit of the proposal which was not discussed in CBO’s analysis is that this a long-overdue reform for honest budgeting. Lawmakers often include rescissions of unspent authorizations as offsets in spending bills. By enacting a stand-alone rescission, Congress will have fewer gimmicky offsets to turn to when drafting legislation that boosts spending.