Trump's Dream GOP Budget Is Making Many Republicans Squirm
By ALICE OLLSTEIN Published MARCH 20, 2017, 6:00 AM EDT
The budget blueprint President Donald Trump released last week—which calls for gutting an array of domestic programs to finance a massive military spending bonanza—would have to clear many political and legal hurdles before becoming law. But an additional unusual obstacle has emerged: pushback from members of his own party.
On Capitol Hill, the same Republicans who railed for years against President Obama's spending priorities are being forced into an awkward position by Trump's budget proposal: defending the Environmental Protection Agency, National Endowment for the Arts, and other federal programs, and decrying efforts to lavish money on the Pentagon.
Some Republicans in Congress dismissed Trump's budget in its entirety, and emphasized that Congress is the branch of government with the ultimate say on what gets funded.
"Many of the reductions and eliminations proposed in the President’s skinny budget are draconian, careless and counterproductive,” Rep. Hal Rogers (R-KY), the immediate past chair of the House Appropriations Committee, said in a statement Thursday. "We will certainly review this budget proposal, but Congress ultimately has the power of the purse."
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