Mick Mulvaney, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, on Tuesday defended cuts to the Children’s Health Insurance Plan, saying that complaints from Democrats are examples of "hypocrisy in its purest form."
In an op-ed in The Washington Post, Mulvaney notes that last month, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California, and Democratic House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer of Maryland, all voted to rescind $6.8 billion in funding for CHIP. Hoyer said on the House floor that he "wouldn’t irrationally oppose a rescission which said we’ve had money lying in an account that has not been spent for one, two, three years; we shouldn’t just have it sitting in that account."
Mulvaney writes, "It’s fascinating to watch Democrats in Congress spin a good-government proposal into a message of grave concern. In this instance, Trump is trying to return unspent government money to the taxpayers, while Democrats are demagoguing the effort as his attempt to hurt innocent children. "Never let facts get in the way of a political attack" appears to be the Democratic mantra.
"This is hypocrisy in its purest form," he adds.
In May, Hoyer said that Democrats do not oppose the idea of rescinding unspent federal funds, but criticized the White House’s plan, asking in remarks to reporters in the Capitol why programs that focus on helping vulnerable people are seeing cuts, but "not a nickel from Defense. ... Not a nickel," according to The Hill.
"It defies logic that if you’re going to rescind money that’s not being used, that the only place to look is [nondefense programs like] Medicare and Medicaid," he said. "Their logic is they want to cut nondefense discretionary spending — whatever it is. And we’re obviously opposed to that as a focus."
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