DEMS/SPENDING/TAXES/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “The Trump administration on Tuesday [5-8-18] began trying to convince U.S. lawmakers to support $15 billion in spending cuts, which Democrats called a hypocritical bid to reclaim an image of fiscal conservatism following Republicans’ deficit-ballooning tax cuts of 2017. President Donald Trump’s package, known as a rescissions request to kill existing budget commitments, rekindled partisan fiscal conflict in Congress on the heels of relative calm with the March 23 enactment of a government-wide funding bill. White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney was dispatched to a weekly Republican meeting to urge approval of the spending cuts. House of Representatives conservatives applauded Trump’s measure…Separately, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell told reporters that ‘if the House is able to pass the rescission package, we will look at it.’ The national debt, an accumulation of past annual deficits, now exceeds $21 trillion and is projected to hit $29 trillion by the end of the decade, expanded by deep Republican tax cuts last December and a massive spending bill by both parties earlier this year.”
-Richard Cowan, “Democrats say Republicans’ $15 billion spending cut request ‘hypocritical’,” Reuters, May 8, 2018 1:01 pm