During a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing last month, Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) questioned officials about President Trump's push to freeze federal funding.
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00:00Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
00:03Thank you to you and Senator Heinrich for holding this hearing really important for
00:07our ability to be able to write our appropriations bills, so I appreciate it.
00:12And I want to thank each of you and all your staff at your agencies for your really excellent
00:16support that you provide to this committee and to Congress.
00:20You know, from day one, President Trump has unilaterally frozen or contravened critical
00:26funding provided in our bipartisan laws.
00:29Those actions by Trump and Russ Vogt have really wreaked havoc for our families and communities
00:35across the country.
00:37That is really not what the Constitution envisioned.
00:40Congress has the power of the purse, period.
00:42Our presidents cannot pick and choose which parts of a law that they can follow.
00:47So Comptroller Dodaro, I wanted to ask you, you have testified that GAO is investigating
00:53the Trump's administration's efforts to block federal funds as potential violations of the
00:58Impoundment Control Act.
01:00What is the status of those investigations?
01:02We have right now 39 different investigations underway.
01:07We're trying to get the information from the agencies about what their legal position is
01:11for not expending the money.
01:14I'm looking forward to what I understand to be a submission by the administration of a rescission
01:20package, which will be following the Impoundment Control Act.
01:24So we'll look at that.
01:25We're monitoring all the litigation surrounding these areas that we're investigating in.
01:32Only three agencies so far have given us the information that we need.
01:36OMB has not been responsive, nor EPA.
01:40Number of other agencies are due to get us information this week or next week.
01:45So I would imagine starting next month after we look to see what is in the rescission package,
01:50obviously.
01:51Next month is in May.
01:52Yeah.
01:53Pardon me?
01:54Yes.
01:55Yes.
01:56Starting of them.
01:57Some, you know, the ones, it'll, they won't all come at once.
01:58They'll come as we collect and analyze all the information.
02:02What options do you have if you don't get timely or responsive information from the federal
02:08agencies?
02:09Well, we'll have to make decisions then on our own based upon the available information.
02:14Some of it will be in the lawsuit filings that we're, that we're following right now.
02:19And then we'll have to go forward doing this.
02:21We had to do this in the past in Interior Department, which didn't respond for a long
02:26period of time.
02:27Congress put in language then after that experience in the appropriation law requiring Interior
02:34to give us information within a certain period of time.
02:37I would suggest respectfully that that be included in this year's appropriation bill to specifically
02:46as it relates to Empowerment and Control Act decisions, that they're timely and responding
02:51to us.
02:52We can give you a reasonable timeframe.
02:54And more broadly, a provision of general cooperation, giving GAO access to the information we need
03:02in our audit issues, because this will address the Chairman's problem question about us being
03:08more efficient.
03:09We can only be as efficient as we can get the information from the agencies.
03:13And also, we've had, in some cases, we give agencies 30, up to 30 days to respond to our
03:19draft reports.
03:21Sometimes they're, they drag on longer.
03:23Okay.
03:24Well, I appreciate that.
03:25And we, Congress, really rely on GAO's expertise as a nonpartisan expert watchdog.
03:31So we appreciate your work and I'm going to stay on top of this, look forward to working
03:35with you on that.
03:37Mr. Swigel, um, Republicans are, as you know, moving full speed ahead with the reconciliation
03:43package, uh, promising to deliver more than 5.3 trillion in new tax breaks for billionaires
03:48and large corporations.
03:51And at the same time, some Republicans have promised that Medicaid, which is a lifeline
03:55for our kids and seniors, is, uh, safe.
03:57But the reality is Republicans can't keep both of those promises.
04:02I want to examine this with you.
04:04Um, the Republican Reconciliation Instruction directs $880 billion in cuts within the House
04:12Energy and Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction over Medicaid, Children's Health Insurance Program,
04:16or CHIP.
04:17Um, you responded to a question from House Ranking Member Brendan Boyle and Frank Pallone in March
04:23regarding spending within the House Energy and Commerce Committee's jurisdiction, excluding
04:29Medicare, which Republicans say is off the table.
04:32In your response, you said over 10 years, Medicaid outlays will account for 93% of baseline budget
04:40projections for energy and commerce.
04:42Is that correct?
04:43Yes, that's correct.
04:44And if you add in CHIP, is it fair to say you are now talking north of 95%?
04:50That's right.
04:51Once you take out Medicaid and CHIP, there's only $381 billion still in the current baseline.
04:56Okay.
04:57So, looking at Table 1 in that March 5th letter, is it fair to say the remainder is nowhere close
05:04to that $880 billion?
05:06Um, that's correct.
05:07That's correct.
05:08In the letter that we sent to Mr. Boyle and Mr. Pallone, um, the, uh, the dollars after
05:14Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP are, um, much smaller than the instruction.
05:19Yeah.
05:20Okay.
05:21So, just for the record, I just want to say that it would appear to me, be, me to be impossible
05:25for energy and commerce, the committee with jurisdiction to reach the spending cuts required
05:30under the Republican reconciliation instructions without cutting Medicaid or putting Medicare
05:35back on the table.
05:36Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
05:38Um, Mr. Heinrich, I understand you've got a couple more questions.