A group of Senate Democrats are rolling out a bill Thursday to cut funding from the White House budget office any time a president uses taxpayer dollars to pay for anything considered political “propaganda.”
The legislation led by Washington Sen. Patty Murray, the Senate’s top Democratic appropriator, is unlikely to clear Congress unless Democrats win control of the House and Senate in the midterms. But the language could eventually be included in annual government funding bills and serves in the meantime as a way for Democrats to press their GOP counterparts on President Donald Trump’s ongoing use of federal funding to air campaign-style ads commending the president and his offensive against Iran.
“Congress cannot sit on its hands,” Murray said in a statement, noting that lawmakers in both parties have said in recent days that they oppose the taxpayer-funded ads the Trump administration is defending as “public service announcements.”
The bill would dock the budget of the Office of Management and Budget by $20 million every time an administration violates existing law barring the use of federal funds for “publicity or propaganda purposes.” The head of the Government Accountability Office would be charged with determining if such a violation has occurred.
