President Donald Trump’s best chance to make sweeping spending cuts relies on a maneuver he attempted unsuccessfully in 2018.
Congressional Republicans have started planning to vote on a package of “rescissions,” using a 51-year-old law that allows the president to propose a clawback of unspent federal dollars. The rarely used process would codify Elon Musk’s legally tenuous spending cuts, which have drawn a series of lawsuits. It would require approval by both chambers of Congress, but Republicans could bypass a filibuster, needing only 51 votes in the Senate.
Trump has a shaky history with rescissions. In 2018, he asked Congress ...