Leaders of Vermont’s House Appropriations Committee have warned colleagues that next year’s state budget-building process could be among the most difficult in recent memory — potentially forcing some existing programs onto the chopping block — as lawmakers grapple with sweeping federal funding cuts in President Donald Trump’s tax and spending law.

“We expect the upcoming state budget cycle to present a number of challenges that most of us have not experienced as legislators before due to uncertainty in the economic forecast and changes in the federal budget,” wrote Rep. Robin Scheu, D-Middlebury, and Rep. Jim Harrison, R-Chittenden, in a memo to the full House last month. Scheu is the committee’s chair; Harrison is its vice chair.

Moreover, the leaders of the powerful budget-writing pane

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