Congress passed Trump's spending cuts. What does that mean for their power of the purse?

USA Today

3 days ago

A drama-filled week in DC saw Democrats accuse Republicans ceding Congress' power to Trump and a curveball involving Jeffrey Epstein.
WASHINGTON − President Donald Trump is racking up legislative wins with the help of a Republican-controlled Congress. Not without a touch of drama and complaining, though.
Republicans in the House and Senate this week approved $9 billion worth of spending cuts, targeted at public broadcasting and foreign aid programs, sending the bill on to Trump's desk for his signature into law.
Made at Trump's request, the canceling of federal funding represents just a slice of the almost $200 billion the Department of Government Efficiency, once spearheaded by Elon Musk, claims to have cut from the federal budget.
More: Rural PBS stations could bear brunt of public media cuts. Just ask those in Kansas
Still, agencies like the World Health Organization and U.S. Agency for International Development, who use federal grants to support things like global health initiatives and peacekeeping efforts, will feel the impacts. The cuts could also be a potential death knell for local PBS and NPR stations across the country, who rely heavily on government funds to keep the lights on and the public in the know.
For Trump, the legislative victory represents an unusual ceding of authority from one branch of the U.S. government to another, as Congress typically tightly guards its Constitutionally-given power of the purse rather than taking the lead from the White House.
Adding to the intrigue: Republican leadership faced a big challenge in trying to advance the Trump-requested package of spending cuts while dealing with an unrelated series of other topics − namely Jeffrey Epstein − that cast a shadow over everything on Capitol Hill.
Here are three key takeaways from this rare congressional scene.
Pickpocketing the power of the purse
Congress previously approved the specific spending totals that they just clawed back in a bill that Trump signed into law in March.
The decision to then revoke $9 billion (a relatively small amount in the scope of the $1.6 trillion federal budget) is rare and unusual. The last time the legislative branch made such a move was in 1999, when Democratic President Bill Clinton was nearing the end of his second term.
More: Lawmakers warn Trump he can't 'pick and choose' what to spend from funding bill
The Constitution gives Congress the power of the purse, a privilege and responsibility its elected lawmakers protect fiercely.
Democrats have accused their Republican colleagues of ceding that power to the president with measures like the recent spending cuts, as well as a sweeping tax, spending and policy bill passed earlier in July at Trump's urging. They also see it as a winning issue on the campaign trail next year.
'This is absolutely going to frame the 2026 election,' Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Maryland, told USA TODAY earlier this month. 'They have decided to cave in completely to Donald Trump and the wishes of the billionaire class.
More: Dismantling agencies and firing workers: How Trump is redefining relations with Congress and courts
Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Missouri, defended the move in an interview with Politico.
"The rescissions process," he said, referring to the action taken this week, "actually considers the legislature's role in what the executive branch is identifying as waste, fraud and abuse, and that's what we're doing right now."
How Jeffrey Epstein factored into debate
An entirely unrelated debate threatened to derail the process of the House approving the spending cuts.
Lawmakers were facing a July 18 midnight deadline to see the rescissions legislation pass through Congress, otherwise the federal funding would need to be spent as mandated by law. But moving quickly became a challenge as Trump and his MAGA base started sparring over the Justice Department's Epstein case file review, a fight that spilled into the halls of Congress and took Republicans' attention away from the impending spending vote.
With the deadline fast approaching, a key House committee eventually came to an agreement to placate its Republican members, at least for the time being, without angering Trump, who has asked his supporters to move on from the heated issue.
House Republicans crafted a non-binding resolution, meaning if passed Trump and his administration would not be required to comply, calling for the release of files related to Epstein's case. GOP leadership has not indicated when or if this resolution would come up for a vote on the House floor.
More spending fights to come
Trump and the GOP can expect more headaches as Congress tackles additional spending debates before year's end.
Director of the Office of Management and Budget Russell Vought suggested midweek there may be more spending cuts to come.
"There is still a great enthusiasm" for these bills, Vought said at a July 17 event. Speaking to reporters on July 18, deputy White House chief of staff James Blair said some of the items in the White House sights include "everything that just doesn't come aboard with the president's agenda, that doesn't make sense, really just taxpayer waste."
But even Republican senators, already weary from this week's process, have warned that they would want the White House to provide much more detail in any future proposals.
"I hope this is just a warm up for what should be tens of billions of dollars worth of rescissions," Thom Tillis said July 15, before the Senate vote. "I think we need to get it right."
There is also the looming prospect of a government shutdown, if Congress does not act in time to pass its annual appropriations bills before a September 30 deadline.
With both chambers out for recess through August, Republicans have less than six weeks to make it happen. It will require bipartisan support, a daunting task given partisan tension that were only heightened by the recent spending cut process and ongoing complaints against passing a continuing resolution as the alternative.