Rescissions:

On May 8^th the Trump Administration requested that the lawmakers rescind $15.4 billion of unobligated funds from prior years. Within Health and Human Services (HHS), the request largely targets Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) funds, with smaller cuts to Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, and the Nonrecurring Expense Fund. While it has no programmatic impacts now it can have a longer-term impact on budget negotiations and options for discretionary funding.

The proposed rescission request of CHIP funds will most-likely reduce the nondefense discretionary (NDD) programmatic funding for LHHS. In the past, funding from CHIP that was not likely going to be spend has been used to make more “space” in the LHHS funding bill, through a process called changes in mandatory spending programs (CHIMPs). When setting the budget deal for FY18 and FY19 lawmakers believed that they would be able to use CHIMPS to set overall funding levels in the appropriations process. By cutting CHIMPS, funding for NDD could end up below level laid out in the budget deal agreed on by Congress.

While this rescission bill is unlikely to pass both chambers of Congress, it still sets the stage for what to expect under the Trump administration. Requests for recessions will most likely pop-up again in future funding bills, requiring programs to ensure that they spend down their budgets.