The White House will announce by Thanksgiving a list of recissions of government spending it had previously called for, predicts House Majority Leader Roy Blunt (R.-Mo.). "I talked to the White House about it [recissions] twice and as late as today," Blunt told me yesterday, adding that he had told Administration officials that "there must be some balance between what you want to do and what we want."
Under the Impoundment Act of 1974, Presidents are permitted to send to Congress a list of spending projects it wants to rescind funding for and then Congress decides, on an up-or-down vote, whether to enact the recissions. Since the Act was passed, every President has sent Congress a list of recissions except for George W. Bush, according to economist Stephen Moore in the Wall Street Journal.
At the morning press briefing at the White House, Press Secretary Scott McClellan confirmed that Blunt was among the congressional leaders with whom the President "had a good discussion" yesterday about how to "cut excessive spending." Asked whether recissions were on the agenda, McClellan-who countered my explanation of recissions by saying "I'm well aware of what recissions are"-replied: "We continue to discuss a lot of ways to cut unnecessary spending and save money."
