Top Senate Republican: Trump's State Department budget 'goes in the waste basket'
Thomson Reuters
President Trump's initial proposed budget won't dictate how the State Department gets funded, according to one of his allies in the Senate.
"The president's budget goes in the waste basket as soon as it gets here," Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker, R-Tenn., said during a Thursday hearing.
Corker is one of Trump's closer congressional allies, and was considered for the post of secretary of state and a potential running mate in the 2016 election.
His comment suggests that Trump's budget proposal — which the White House offered as an example of Trump keeping is campaign promises — won't get much more respect from Republicans than former President Barack Obama's did, despite their agreement that the State Department should be cut.
Trump's plan to cut foreign aid while reducing diplomatic spending by approximately one-third has met with resistance from traditional foreign policy experts.
"I think the concern we have is, it seems [to be an] across-the-board meat ax, rather than pursuant to a plan and it seems to be premised on the notion that we don't need these non-military elements as part of our national security toolkit," former national security adviser Stephen Hadley told the committee in a Thursday hearing.
Associated Perss/Carolyn Kaster
Hadley suggested that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson should be given the opportunity to review the department to identify true inefficiencies.
"Why not give him some time to learn his organization, figure out how he wants to reorganize it to strengthen [it]]?" he suggested. "And then on the basis of his plan for the department come to the congress of the United States to say, 'I can cut these things, I can eliminate these things, but some of these things actually maybe I need to plus up."
Corker's reply suggested that Hadley's concerns are overwrought. "I think that's kinda what's happening, is it not?" he said. "The president's budget goes in the waste basket as soon as it gets here, so, isn't that what's happening?"
That independence from the White House notwithstanding, Corker emphasized that he agrees with the need to trim a "bloated" State Department budget.
"I support those things that are transformative, I really do," Corker said during the hearing. "At the same time, a bunch of what we've done for years is just doubling down on the Cold War model of buying influence towards no end."