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US eyes $18B in social cuts

The White House is following up its longshot roster of budget cuts with a wish list of $18 billion worth of immediate reductions, including cuts to medical research, infrastructure, and community development grants.

The proposals have little chance to be enacted, however.

The roster of cuts do not represent official administration proposals. Instead, they were sent to Capitol Hill as a set of "options" for GOP staff aides and lawmakers crafting a catchall spending bill for the ongoing budget year, which ends Sept. 30.

The documents arrived as negotiations over a catchall spending package continue Tuesday with the aim of averting a partial government shutdown at the end of next month. The package would wrap up $1.1 trillion in unfinished spending bills and address the administration's request for an immediate $30 billion in additional Pentagon spending.

Those talks are intensifying, but Senate Republicans are considering backing away from a showdown with Democrats over whether to fund President Donald Trump's request for immediate funding to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Senate Democrats have threatened to filibuster any language providing money for the wall.

The government would shut down except for some functions on April 29 without successful action on spending. 



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