Rep. Mark Walker: Rescissions Package Must Pass

The rescissions package that claws back $15.4 billion in wasteful spending must pass, Rep. Mark Walker, R-N.C., wrote.

"Washington is more broken even than the politicians are willing to admit. Case in point: When President Trump submitted his rescissions package Tuesday, its passage in the Senate was still in doubt," Walker wrote in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece.

Walker noted that McConnell said he would consider bringing the package to the floor because it does not affect the omnibus spending bill. “Still, it’s unclear why a Republican would fight to preserve the dysfunctional process that led to the disastrous omnibus,” Walker wrote.

Rescissions remove money that had been appropriated for domestic spending accounts but never spent. A simple majority allows such a package to pass, Vox noted.

The congressman noted that rescissions are not an exclusively Republican political maneuver, as he pointed out that President Bill Clinton used the process 166 times to save more than $3.5 billion.

Congress must do its job, Walker wrote.

"The reality is that Republicans gave their word to the American people to rein in out-of-control spending… the package Mr. Trump sent yesterday is good, and his base should be encouraged in this moment of fiscal restraint," Walker wrote in The Journal.

• Report: White House Eyeing $60B in Cuts From Spending Bill
• The Hill: McConnell Skeptical on Call to Claw Back Spending