The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) said in a statement that Mick Mulvaney was going to vote for President Donald Trump’s budget proposal if he was still part of Congress. This comes after the OMB director said during a Senate hearing on Tuesday that he would not support Trump’s budget.
According to The Hill, Mulvaney, who was on Capitol Hill to defend the proposal, said he “probably would have found enough shortcomings” in the document to vote against it if he were still a congressman. However, the OMB said Mulvaney was referring to a spending cap deal reached last week, not the actual Trump budget.
During the hearing on Tuesday, Mulvaney was asked by Senator Patty Murray whether he would vote for “this budget that you’re presenting,” if he were still a congressman.
The Senator noted that Mulvaney previously said to her that he wouldn’t vote for the deal Trump signed last week to increase spending caps by about $300 billion over two years.
“I can give the same answer I gave on Sunday, which is that as a member of Congress representing the 5th District of South Carolina, I probably would have found enough shortcomings in this to vote against it, as did many members of this committee,” Mulvaney replied. “But I’m the director of the Office of Management and Budget, and my job is to try and fund the president’s priorities, which is exactly what we did.”
For an OMB director to criticize the budget he spearheads is highly unusual, which is the reason why this has attracted a lot of attention.
Later, an OMB spokeswoman claimed that Mulvaney wasn’t thinking of Trump’s budget when he replied to Murray.
“Just to be clear, Director Mulvaney was referring to the recent caps deal when answering Senator Murray’s question this morning. Naturally, he would vote for the President’s [fiscal 2019] budget that he released yesterday,” spokeswoman Meghan Burris said.
Be the first to comment