Trump's budget is facing massive blowback in Congress — and Republicans are some of the loudest complainers

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President Donald Trump's 2018 budget plan, released Tuesday, faced nearly universal pushback in Congress, as even members of his party expressed skepticism about its provisions.

Drastic cuts to agricultural and healthcare programs have drawn blowback from lawmakers in districts whose constituents would be affected by the slashes.

The response could foreshadow a different budget approach from Congress as it deliberates government spending.

'Dead on arrival'

Perhaps the most damaging sign for Trump's budget is that many lawmakers in his party have taken issue with all or parts of the plan.

Sen. John Cornyn, the second-highest-ranking Republican in the Senate, dismissed the importance of presidential budget proposals altogether, even though Trump's represented the first sense of the administration's priorities.

"Almost every president's budget proposal is basically dead on arrival, including President Obama's," Cornyn told reporters, adding that Trump's may face a "similar fate."

Sen. John McCain had a similar assessment, citing what he saw as inadequate increases in military funding.

"President Trump's $603 billion defense budget request is inadequate to the challenges we face, illegal under current law, and part of an overall budget proposal that is dead on arrival in Congress," McCain said in a statement Tuesday.

Rep. Fred Upton said many of the provisions were "nonstarters." He suggested that Mick Mulvaney, the director of the Office of Management and Budget who rolled out the plan, would not vote for the budget if he were still a member of the House, according to Erica Werner of The Associated Press.

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Many Republican lawmakers took aim at proposed cuts to programs that would directly affect their constituents.

Rep. Hal Rogers, the Republican chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, told The Washington Post that the proposed $610 billion cut to Medicaid spending, which is on top of a proposed $880 billion cut in the GOP healthcare bill, would be a problem for his district.

"I've got one of the poorest districts in the country, with lots of Medicaid recipients as well as other programs," Rogers said. "The cuts are draconian."

Sen. Pat Roberts, the head of the Senate Agriculture Committee, told The Wall Street Journal's Kristina Peterson that the proposed cuts to crop-insurance funding were unacceptable.

"It's just a lot of people who don't know what the hell is going on in farm country," Roberts said.

Rep. Mark Meadows, the chairman of the hardline conservative House Freedom Caucus, which has railed against government spending, even said the administration's proposed cuts to some programs were too much.

"Meals on Wheels, even for some of us who are considered to be fiscal hawks, may be a bridge too far," Meadows told The New York Times.

Republicans also questioned some of the economic-growth statistics the White House used to sell the budget on Tuesday. The budget assumes gross domestic product growth will hit 3% in 2019 and remain there through 2027, which the administration says would mean a balanced budget in 10 years.

"Three percent, I'm not seeing how you get there mathematically," Rep. Mark Sanford told the AP. "It makes for a make-believe debate that I find frustrating."

Overall, the tone from Republicans on Trump's budget was that the proposed cuts were not good policy — and nearly impossible to sell politically.

"Like I want to go home after having voting against Meals on Wheels and say, 'Oh, it's a bad program, keeping seniors alive'? There's just some of the stuff in here that doesn't make any sense," Rep. Mike Simpson said. "Frankly, you can't pass these budgets on the floor."

'Comic-book-villain bad'

Democrats also piled on the president's proposal.

"When you add it all up, Mr. President, the Trump budget is comic-book-villain bad; and just like comic books, it relies on a fantasy to make all the numbers work," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said. "It's the kind of budget you might expect from someone who is openly rooting for a government shutdown. Haven't we heard the president say that?"

"This is a budget that is immoral and that will cause an enormous amount of pain for the most vulnerable people in our nation," Sen. Bernie Sanders said at a press conference Tuesday. "This is a budget that will be rejected by the American people and must not see the light of day here in Congress."

The bipartisan pushback most likely means change will be in order as budget negotiations kick off in Congress.

Chris Krueger of the Cowen Washington Research Group said Trump's budget proposal's policies were "total nonstarters on Capitol Hill."

"The 24 House Republicans who represent districts won by Hillary Clinton are likely to see political ads run in their districts having this budget around their necks like a millstone," Kruger said in a note to clients on Tuesday. "The public statements from Republican congressmen in Appalachia — the backbone of Trump's electoral support — have been particularly critical of the proposed domestic/social safety-net cuts."

Greg Valliere, the chief global strategist at Horizon Investments, in a note on Monday expressed similar reservations about the prospects of Trump's proposal gaining traction.

"It's difficult to envision Trump getting his way on his budget," he said.

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