The power of the purse is up for grabs in the new Trump era

Yahoo

28-01-2025

When President Donald Trump named Russel Vought to run the Office of Management and Budget, I warned it was a sign that his administration intended to seize total control of federal spending from Congress. Two weeks ago, I said that if Vought were confirmed, billions of dollars in projects would go unfunded at the president's whim, no matter what legislators have said.
I was wrong. They didn't even wait for Vought to be confirmed.
Instead, on Monday night, OMB's acting director, Matthew J. Vaeth, sent a memo across the federal government ordering a freeze of 'all Federal financial assistance.' The memo insists on calling this a 'pause.' A federal judge intervened on Tuesday afternoon, issuing an administrative stay to hold off on the OMB order being fully implemented until Monday at soonest. But beyond the immediate and likely catastrophic impact of halting, even briefly, any portion of the $3 trillion in annual spending Vaeth cites, the memo serves as a reminder that any 'temporary' power that Trump claims for himself won't be easily relinquished.
'The use of Federal resources to advance Marxist equity, transgenderism, and green new deal social engineering policies is a waste of taxpayer dollars that does not improve the day-to-day lives of those we serve,' Vaeth wrote in the memo, which was first reported by Marisa Kabas of The Handbasket. It then required federal agencies to go through all grants and loans that it doles out to ensure that they align with the firehose of executive orders that Trump has issued. In the meantime, Vaeth ordered agencies to 'temporarily pause' any programs that could contradict those orders 'including, but not limited to, financial assistance for foreign aid, nongovernmental organizations, DEI, woke gender ideology, and the green new deal.'
While Vaeth was anything but vague about the reasoning behind the funding freeze, the scope of the pause itself has been wildly confusing. While exempting programs that provide assistance 'directly to individuals,' as well as Social Security and Medicare, the order could potentially affect a big and broad swath of programming. Accompanying the memo was a nearly 900-page spreadsheet for officials to plug in the details of their programs and identify which funding is legally required to be distributed before March 15, when the current short-term spending bill runs out of money. And because the two-page memo lacked specific guidance, the odds are good that program officials — with the encouragement of their newly installed political minders, who the order tasks with overseeing this process— will err on the side of shutting down anything that could conceivably fall into one of Vaeth's ideological buckets.
For a glimpse at how this will play out in the short term, look to the halt on foreign aid handed down last week. That freeze didn't just call for a review but a 'stop work' order for all currently funded programs. On Monday, several U.S. Agency for International Development staffers were placed on leave for supposedly violating the pause — a warning to others who might want to keep doing their jobs in the face of a blatantly illegal order. Since that halt, a sense of confusion and concern has reigned in the international aid community.
The mess will surely worsen now that domestic programs are included. Not even the administration seems to know the scope of what it's asking: When reporters asked White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, at her first briefing, if Medicaid would be affected, she replied, 'I'll check back on that and get back to you.' OMB itself issued a follow-up that said Medicaid, SNAP, Pell grants and 'other similar programs' will not be paused.
The shifting guidance has had nigh-cartoonish consequences. The spokesperson for Meals on Wheels on Tuesday told HuffPost's Arthur Delaney that 'the uncertainty right now is creating chaos for local Meals on Wheels providers not knowing whether they should be serving meals today.' (Leavitt said at her briefing that the group would not be included in the pause.) The idea that a program as innocuous seeming as Meals on Wheels could see its funding frozen may seem absurd. But as we saw with 'anti-woke' laws in Florida, vagueness prompts pre-emptive cooperation and censorship from those who fear retaliation. Can anyone say with a straight face they know for sure whether MAGA views feeding the elderly as overly 'inclusionary' for old people?
Aside from being a major crisis for these organizations, the memo from OMB is a bright red warning sign that any funding the White House 'temporarily' pauses could easily become permanently blocked. Under the Impound Control Act of 1974, it doesn't matter if Trump doesn't like how federal money is being spent. He simply doesn't have the power to withhold, or 'impound,' funds that Congress has appropriated. There are a few exceptions to this, but as University of Michigan law professor Sam Bagenstos noted on Bluesky, even temporary pauses are illegal under the Impound Control Act. But in his Senate confirmation hearing this month, Vought said that he thinks the act is unconstitutional. He has argued in the past that a president can unilaterally withhold whatever funding doesn't align with his vision. And if Congress doesn't like it, Vought says, that's too bad.
Speaking of Congress, the ranking Democrats from the House and Senate Appropriations Committees wrote to OMB on Monday night to demand that Vaeth 'reverse course to ensure requirements enacted into law are faithfully met and the nation's spending laws are implemented as intended.' House Democrats are meanwhile out of town for the week but holding an emergency virtual caucus meeting on Wednesday afternoon to discuss the 'illegal Republican funding freeze.'
But it seems congressional Republicans are more than happy to give up their power of the purse. The GOP-controlled Senate shows no signs of delaying confirmation of Vought or any of Trump's other nominees, even as the president effectively strips legislators of their authority. Amazingly, House Appropriations Chair Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., is apparently unclear on whether appropriations even count as 'laws' rather than a 'directive.' (They do, but it really shows how far we've come from when the House Appropriations chair was one of the most powerful positions in the country.)
With Congress inactive, that leaves enforcement most likely up to the courts. Democratic state attorneys general are already preparing a lawsuit to get the freeze overturned, and further briefings will soon move forward in the suit from an NGO that prompted Tuesday's administrative stay, setting us up for a potential speed run to the Supreme Court. Given Chief Justice John Roberts' views about the separation of powers, it's hard to see him lining up against the Impound Control Act and its clear support for Congress' Article I control over federal spending. But as the Prospect's Daniel Dayen noted, it's clear that the administration wanted to be sued over this action and that Trump's advisers are confident their cause will prevail among enough justices to win out.
As the matter winds through the courts, Democrats can't sit back and let this slide. There needs to be members of Congress hitting every local news station to explain why popular programs like Head Start might be shuttered if deemed a "DEI initiative," how the GOP is glad people's medical bills aren't being paid, and exactly who is to blame. Further, it should be a no-brainer that any funding bill that requires Democratic support — including keeping the government open in mid-March — must include clear language repudiating Trump's cash grab before it receives a single Democratic vote. Anything less will be an open invitation for this administration to continue attacking both our constitutional system and the millions of Americans who depend on the funds Trump is illegally slashing.
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com