President Donald Trump’s budget chief has a scheme to simply declare certain funding passed by Congress as canceled — but some Senate Republicans are pushing back, decrying this plan as illegal and a violation of the separation of powers, Politico
reported
Friday.
Specifically, Office of Management and Budget chief Russ Vought, the architect of the
Project 2025 agenda
, calls this plan a “pocket rescission.”
“To hear Vought tell it, a ‘pocket rescission’ is a legitimate tool at the executive branch’s disposal. In such a scenario, President Donald Trump would issue a formal request to claw back funding, similar to the $9.4 billion package he
sent lawmakers this month
to cancel congressionally approved funding for public broadcasting and foreign aid,” said the report. “But in this case, the memo would land on Capitol Hill less than 45 days before the new fiscal year is set to begin Oct. 1. By withholding the cash for that full timeframe — regardless of action by Congress — the White House would treat the funding as expired when the current fiscal year ends on Sept. 30.”
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However, lawmakers on Capitol Hill are not happy with this end-run around their authority to direct the power of the purse.
“Pocket rescissions are illegal, in my judgment, and contradict the will of Congress and the constitutional authority of Congress to appropriate funds,” said Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Congress has previously passed legislation clarifying that the president doesn’t have the authority to simply cancel funding they authorized for federal programs, most notably in the 1974
Impoundment Control Act
, which Vought has argued is unconstitutional.
Already this year, the Trump administration has been accused of violating this law, including a scathing report from the Government Accountability Office on Trump’s move to
freeze federal funding for libraries and museums
.
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