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WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Donald Trump's plan to impose sharp cuts to foreign aid and domestic programs is a non-starter in the Republican-led Congress and that's according to top GOP lawmakers.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who once headed the panel responsible for the foreign assistance budget, told reporters that Trump's cuts to foreign aid probably couldn't pass muster on Capitol Hill.

"The diplomatic portion of the federal budget is very important and you get results a lot cheaper frequently than you do on the defense side," McConnell told reporters. "So speaking for myself, I'm not in favor of reducing the (foreign aid) account to that extent."

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Trump's draft budget plan would add $54 billion to the Pentagon's projected budget, financed by taking an equal amount from domestic agencies and departments. Diplomacy and foreign aid would face a 37 percent cut that would be felt across the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Trump said in his Tuesday night joint address to Congress that his budget "calls for one of the largest increases in national defense spending in American history .... (and) will also increase funding for our veterans."

Trump's budget was panned by the Senate's top Democrat, Chuck Schumer of New York.

"The same time he's talking about medical research he's going to slash it," Schumer said on Wednesday. "Education. He talked about the great issue of education. Same thing. His budget is going to slash education to smithereens."

The initial reaction among Republicans signaled that Trump faces a fight with his party over the $1 trillion-plus portion of the federal budget that is passed each year by Congress. That discretionary part of the budget has been squeezed over the past few years, while Republicans controlling Congress have largely ignored the ever-growing tide of automatic-pilot spending on benefit programs like food stamps, student loans, and Medicare.

The proposed cut to the State Department's diplomatic corps and the foreign aid budget are particularly striking, and likely to include security contractors at diplomatic missions abroad after the GOP criticized Democrats for security at the U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya, where four Americans died in a 2012 attack.

"What the president wants is to move spending from, say, overseas back in this country," said Trump's budget director, former tea party Rep. Mick Mulvaney, R-S.C., on "Good Morning America" on ABC. "That's why you'll see fairly significant reductions in his proposals regarding foreign aid."

Such a cut fits into Trump's "America first" worldview, but is alarming to lawmakers who see diplomacy and foreign aid as a small but crucial component of the federal budget, just more than 1 percent.

Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, a primary rival of Trump, delivered an impassioned speech on the Senate floor in defense of foreign aid. Rubio argued that spending on foreign aid is critical to the U.S. economy and national security.

"I promise you it's going to be a lot harder to recruit someone to anti-American and anti-American terrorism if the United States of America was the reason why they are even alive today," said the senator, a member of the Foreign Relations Committee.

Other Trump targets include the Environmental Protection Agency, the IRS, and many grant programs for state and local government. Public housing vouchers for the poor are targeted as well, much to the consternation of the pragmatic-minded lawmakers on the House and Senate Appropriations committees, whose programs were significantly curbed by a hard-fought 2011 budget and debt agreement.

"We've reduced our discretionary spending over the last seven or eight years an incredible amount," said House Appropriations Committee Chairman Rodney Frelinghuysen, R-N.J. "Maybe some people don't like those agencies, but it's been pretty difficult for them to meet their mandate."

Top congressional priorities include aid to disadvantaged schools, Pell Grants for low-income college students, medical research, Amtrak subsidies, and water and sewer projects.

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"There are important priorities within the domestic side, on the discretionary side of domestic spending," added Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan.

McConnell noted that it requires Democratic votes in the Senate to pass appropriations bills. That works to the advantage of more pragmatic Republicans.

Many GOP lawmakers would prefer cuts to entitlement programs rather than already-strapped agency operating budgets and that's fine with party conservatives.

"We can no longer expand federal spending without finding savings somewhere," said Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md. "And so, the people who want to protect nondefense discretionary, they're going to have to realize at some point we may have to look at the entitlement programs."

Trump has said he wants to leave Social Security and Medicare alone, though Mulvaney says other entitlement programs are likely to be addressed in Trump's full budget submission in May.

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Trump budget plan draws strong opposition _ from Republicans - Yahoo Finance

Hill Republicans are once again at the mercy of President Donald Trump political whims.

CNN reported Tuesday that Trump wants Republicans and Democrats to work together on an immigration reform bill that would allow undocumented immigrants to stay in the US with their families if they paid taxes and had no serious criminal record -- a stance that runs counter to the tough-on-immigrant rhetoric that defined Trump's polarizing campaign and galvanized much of his base.

"The time is right for an immigration bill as long as there is compromise on both sides," Trump told reporters at the White House.

Congressional Republicans were not ready for this.

"I wish they would send me a memo when they're going to do something because some of us are in meetings all day long trying to do our job, and then I come out and get asked 'what's your opinion,'" Arizona Republican Rep. David Schweikert told CNN.

Giving legal status to undocumented immigrants isn't necessarily a deal breaker in the House, but some conservatives argued that talking about legalizing millions before further action is taken on border security is premature.

"The most important thing is secure the border. Until that's done, you cannot even get to the other questions," Ohio Republican Jim Jordan, a member of the House Freedom Caucus, told CNN. "We have to demonstrate that we're going to actually secure the border so we have to do that first than we can get to all the other questions."

The number three House Republican, Rep. Steve Scalise, told CNN he hoped Trump would double down on border security, but signaled he wasn't ready to embrace any potential compromise dealing with those undocumented workers in the US now.

"I want to see us secure the border -- that needs to be our top priority on immigration," Scalise said.

There is no doubt that adding immigration reform to an already exhaustive agenda on Capitol Hill that includes repealing Obamacare, enacting tax reform, and passing a major infrastructure bill could be a step too far for a deeply divided legislature, but a senior administration official told CNN that Trump had still hoped it could be accomplished in his first term.

It wasn't that long ago that Republicans and Democrats teamed up to pass an immigration bill out of the Senate, but ultimately it died in the House of Representatives where it never came up for a vote partially because of concerns among House Republicans that giving undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship was too generous. What the White House is proposing doesn't go that far, but it still could be problematic for a party who just won the House, the Senate and the White House on a tough-on-immigration message.

Some Republicans, including early Trump supporter Rep. Chris Collins, applauded Trump's openness to immigration reform.

Texas Republican Rep. Bill Flores praised the concept, telling CNN, "I am there -- that's where I am, that's where my district is and I've got a fairly conservative district so I'm fine with that."

Flores said he polled constituents at his own town hall recently and they overwhelmingly voted for a plan that would offer some type of legal status.

"President Trump is in a unique position by coming out and advocating something where I think most of the country is that he can silence what I say is the hard left and the hard right on this - not silence, but he can sort of bring a perfectly reasonable solution that's important so I'm glad he's doing it," Flores said.

Behind closed doors, one GOP member said that discussions are already underway among a group of House Republicans to get a bipartisan immigration bill across the finish line.

Members were meeting in hopes that at some point, they could pick up and run with any appetite from the White House to pursue immigration reform. The member, who spoke on the condition of background so they could speak freely about the ongoing discussions, said they had not been in consultation with the White House, but that the news was welcome.

"There's been a lot of work done," the member said, noting that they have reached out to Democrats, but so far the meetings have just been with Republicans. "There's always been the issue from a lot of folks --particularly from the right -- that say 'look, if we had border security we can do more.' There was zero confidence with (President Barack) Obama and I understand why. He didn't want to do border security."

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Trump throws curveball at Republicans with call for immigration deal - Journal Times

NEW YORK Rank-and-file Republicans are more concerned about leaks to the media of conversations between Trump advisers and the Russian government than they are about the conversations themselves, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll released Wednesday.

The poll, conducted between Feb. 16 and Feb. 20, shows how President Donald Trump has shifted opinions within the party of Ronald Reagan, where national security has been a top issue since the Cold War, said Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.

"Republicans have now put a higher priority on their partisan identification and support for their current leader than principles they have had for many decades," Sabato said. "We live in such a polarized era."

Trump asked his national security adviser Michael Flynn to resign this month after news organizations reported he had discussed U.S. sanctions with a Russian diplomat while Barack Obama was still president.

Yet, while the media focused on the contacts with Russia, Trump blamed Flynn's departure on "criminal" leaks. He said Flynn was treated unfairly and that news reports of the conversations were "fake news."

"The real story here is why are there so many illegal leaks coming out of Washington?" Trump said in a tweet.

[Click here to see fullgraphic on the poll: tmsnrt.rs/2lLW2OE]

The Reuters/Ipsos poll attempted to measure which narrative was more credible for Americans. It asked people to pick one of two statements that was "the most concerning to you."

The first statement cited "reports that Trump advisors were in repeated contact with the Russian government during the 2016 presidential election." The second cited "U.S. intelligence agents leaking details of conversations between Trump advisors and the Russian government to reporters."

Overall, 43 percent of Americans said they were most concerned about reports of the contacts with Russia. Another 39 percent said they were concerned about the leaks and 19 percent said they didn't know.

However, people who identified with the Republican Party appeared to be much more troubled by the leaks. Some 57 percent said the leaks were the bigger concern, while 23 percent said it was the Russian contacts, and another 20 percent didn't know.

[Click on this link for an interactive view of the data in the Reuters Polling Explorer: polling.reuters.com/#poll/TM1163Y17/dates/20170216-20170220/type/overall]

Gary Crosen, 65, a retiree from Millersville, Md., who took the poll, said he did not think it was a big deal that Flynn spoke with Russia.

"I consider Russia one of our friends," Crosen said. "And we don't need to publicize it the way the news media has.

"A lot goes on behind the scenes that we dont see, and I don't think you need to bring it all out in the open."

The Reuters/Ipsos poll was conducted online in English in all 50 states. It surveyed 1,562 American adults, including 578 who identified as Republicans. It has a credibility interval, a measure of accuracy, of 3 percentage points for the entire sample and 5 percentage points for Republicans only.

(Reporting by Chris Kahn; Editing by James Dalgleish)

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Republicans more concerned by leaks than Trump team Russian ...

New York Times

Desperate for Presidential Leadership, Republicans Find Little New York Times WASHINGTON Congressional Republicans, racked by divisions over health care, taxes and spending, are increasingly desperate for leadership from the White House to unite the party and point the way toward consensus. But presidential leadership does ... Republicans lack agreement on Obamacare ahead of Trump speechReuters Republicans near make-or-break moment on Obamacare repealPolitico Why the GOP's alternatives to Obamacare are political time bombsLos Angeles Times CNN -Fox News -New Republic -Pew Research Center all 592 news articles »

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Desperate for Presidential Leadership, Republicans Find Little - New York Times

President Trump isnt much interested in legislative details, and these days House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) isnt much interested in candor. That explains how they can both claim to be perfectly in sync and yet be heading for huge clashes on fundamental policy ideas. In fact, on defense spending, the budget more generally, entitlements and reforming health care and taxes, the differences between the GOP-controlled Crngress and the White House threaten to overwhelm progress on major initiatives.

On defense spending, for example, Trump announced a $54 billion increase in defense spending. That would require 60 votes to override the existing caps on the Budget Control Act (BCA). Democrats surely wont agree to proposed, massive offsetting cuts in domestic problems, but even Republicans are unenthusiastic about Trumps proposal.

Defense News reports thatHouse Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-Tex.) and Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) have each proposeda $640 billion base budget and argue this is a meager $18 billion more than President Obama had planned:

McCain, in a statement, said the figure was, a mere 3 percentabove President Obamas defense budget, which has left our military underfunded, undersized, and unready to confront threats to our national security With a world on fire, America cannot secure peace through strength with just 3 percent more than President Obamas budget. We can and must do better. . . . .

While we cannot repair all of the damage done by those cuts in a single year, we can and should do more than this level of funding will allow, Thornberry said in a statement. The administration will have to make clear which problems facing our military they are choosing not to fix.We cannot make repairing and rebuilding our military conditional on fixing our budget problems or on cutting other spending.

Overall, the presidents budget doubles down on the Obama administrations fiscal irresponsibility and the flaw in the BCA: refusing to address entitlement programs while squeezing popular domestic programs. Trumps own defense secretary has spoken out previously about cuts slashing foreign aid and diplomatic functions that complement the militarys mission. Republicans in Congress will find it difficult to swallow huge new cuts in popular programs such as the National Institutes of Health, national parks, NASA, job training, etc. Likewise, if Trumps budget increases the debt, which it almost inevitably will, you can expect budget hawks, including Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah), to balk.

The decision to seek major tax cuts while taking entitlement reform out of the equation means that a fiscally sound budget is virtually impossible. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget reminds us:

Domestic discretionary spending what the administration proposed to cut today to pay for defense increases only accounts for about 15 percent of spending and less than 5 percent of spending growth over the next decade. Social Security and health spending, on the other hand, account for half of total spending and almost two-thirds of spending growth over the next decade.

President Trump and administration officials have said in the past they will not propose any changes in Social Security and Medicare, even though both are on a path to insolvency. Entitlement reforms are necessary not only to protect those who depend on them but also to slow rising debt levels and create fiscal space for other programs, which are currently being crowded out.

Move over to Obamacare, and you see the Freedom Caucus in rebellion over the one element in the GOP plans that would aim to replace Obamacares health-care subsidies refundable tax credits. No way, the right-wingers say. The Hill reports:

The chairman of the influential Republican Study Committee said Monday he would vote against a draft ObamaCare replacement bill that leaked last week.Rep. Mark Walker (R-N.C.), head of the 172-member committee, said Monday his opposition stems from the draft bills use of refundable tax credits. There are serious problems with what appears to be our current path to repeal and replace Obamacare. The draft legislation, which was leaked last week, risks continuing major Obamacare entitlement expansions and delays any reforms, Walker said in a statementMonday.

It kicks the can down the road in the hope that a future Congress will have the political will and fiscal discipline to reduce spending that this Congress apparently lacks. Worse still, Walker continued, the bill contains what increasingly appears to be a new health insurance entitlement with a Republican stamp on it.

Finally, on tax reform, any plan that slashes rates on individuals and businesses without offsetting revenue will be a nonstarter for many conservatives, while Democrats are not going to support any plan that delivers big tax cuts for the rich. Ryans effort to make the numbers work through use of a border adjustment tax has run into a brick wall of opposition among Republican senators as well as business and consumer groups.

In sum, the White House seems oblivious to the unworkability of its plans and the fundamental differences within the GOP ranks. Ryan evidences no awareness as to how unpopular the specifics of his health-care and tax plans will be. How this all gets resolved even before Republicans try rounding up Democrats to pass measures that gut domestic spending, cut back on Medicaid and other health-care measures and give more tax cuts to the rich is anyones guess. In setting unattainable goals, overestimating Obamacare criticism and failing to appreciate the publics resistance to hard-right positions, the GOP may wind up with nothing to show for its 2016 wins. If so, it will face the real possibility of losing at least one of its majorities in 2018.

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Republicans are headed for huge clashes with Trump - Washington Post (blog)