(Updated at 7 p.m. ET)
The White House will formally ask Congress on Tuesday to roll back $7 billion in already appropriated Children's Health Insurance Program funds as part of a $15 billion rescission proposal officials are calling the largest one-time package ever requested of Congress by a president.
More than $5 billion of the CHIP funds the White House wants to cut comes from unspent funds from 2017 that White House officials say will have no impact on the program. An additional $1.9 billion in CHIP cuts would come from a contingency fund states can tap into if they enroll more children than expected, senior administration officials said Monday evening.
No states are projected to need this extra money, according to a White House analysis.
Other health-related cuts include $800 million from the CMS' Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation fund. Officials say this cut also won't affect programs as it is money that the agency will not be able to spend ahead of its next $10 billion appropriation.
This is the first of several rescission packages the White House will present, senior officials said. The next package will address the $1.3 trillion spending omnibus Congress passed in March, which spurred heavy criticism from President Donald Trump as well as conservatives. The request will focus on specific funding measures from the spending omnibus Trump would have cut through line-item veto, according to officials.
While GOP House aides and administration staff say the rescissions plan is popular with House Republicans, where the request will originate, prospects in the Senate are less clear. Once the White House sends its request over, the House Appropriations Committee will start drafting legislation for the floor vote.
In the Senate, administration officials said talks between lawmakers and Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney are ongoing. While the Senate could pass the package with a 51-person majority, the absence of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who is battling cancer and has not appeared in Congress since December 2017, shrinks the margin of error.
A spokesperson for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said the leader likely won't comment on the package until he has "received and reviewed it."
Some Democrats cried foul on Monday as reports of the plan emerged.
"Let's be honest about what this is: President Trump and Republicans in Congress are looking to tear apart the bipartisan Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), hurting middle-class families and low-income children, to appease the most conservative special interests and feel better about blowing up the deficit to give the wealthiest few and biggest corporations huge tax breaks," Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on the Senate floor."
Senate Finance Committee ranking Democrat Ron Wyden, blasted the White House for making the healthcare of millions of kids "the first target in a political charade."
Wyden noted that he needs to see the details of the proposal but said he would consider it carefully as "one sloppy mistake by a staffer in the White House could put millions of kids' healthcare in jeopardy."
Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, however said that he understood the White House was mostly talking about unspent funds. "I've got to see it, then we will sit down to discuss," Leahy said.
Under federal law, the funds will be released if Congress doesn't act within 45 days of receiving the president's rescission request. Congress may approve more or less than the amount requested.
From fiscal 1974 to fiscal 2006, presidents have requested nearly 1,200 rescissions of more than $76 billion in total under the law. Congress approved nearly one-third of these requests and enacted about 40% of the total dollar amount of the request.
Congress, which can also initiate rescissions, launched more than 1,600 rescission actions for nearly $144 billion in that same time period.
After months of political wrangling, Congress funded CHIP for a full 10 years through two different measures passed as part of a continuing budget resolution in January with an extra four years of funding added in the $1.3 trillion spending omnibus passed in March.
