The White House is instructing Cabinet heads and agency officials not to elaborate on President Donald Trump's proposed budget cuts beyond what was in a relatively brief submission, a move Democrats decried as a gag order.
Budget Director Mick Mulvaney wrote in a memo late last week that until the full budget release in May, "all public comments of any sort should be limited to the information contained in the Budget Blueprint chapter for your agency," referring to the 53-page document released last Thursday.
The budget traded a USD 54 billion boost for the military for crushing cuts to domestic programs like medical research, community development, foreign aid and a slew of other programs. Typically, Cabinet heads and agency officials testify before the respective congressional committees on the budget after its release.
Mulvaney said department and agency heads should not make "commitments about specific programs" or provide further detail about cuts to programs that went unmentioned in last week's summary budget, which glossed over many of the most politically difficult details.
"It is critically important that you not make commitments about specific programs if they are not expressly mentioned in the budget," Mulvaney wrote in the memo. "Similarly, you should not address account-level details. Comments of such specifics need to wait until the release of the full budget."
Already, House hearings featuring Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and top National Institutes of Health officials have been postponed, leading Democrats to charge that the White House has issued a gag order to avoid negative publicity about the budget.
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