Latest news with #RussVought
E&E News
10 hours ago
- Business
- E&E News
Russ Vought plans to make DOGE cuts permanent
The Trump administration has plans to advance its desired spending cuts even if Congress won't cooperate, the head of the White House budget office said in an interview Sunday. Russ Vought, the head of the Office of Management and Budget, described the White House's plans to use 'executive tools' if necessary to cut federal spending. Vought's comments to CNN's 'State of the Union' on Sunday came as the administration is pushing Congress to formalize some of the cuts made by the DOGE government-slashing operation through a 'rescissions' bill. Asked whether the administration intends to ask Congress for approval for all the cuts done by DOGE, Vought replied, 'We might. We want to see how this first bill does. We want to make sure it's actually passed.' It represents the 'first of many rescissions bills,' he said. Advertisement Beyond using that process to formalize cuts through Congress, Vought said, 'we have executive tools.'
E&E News
10 hours ago
- Business
- E&E News
Trump revives efforts to kill Chemical Safety Board
The Trump administration is attempting to once again eliminate the small agency charged with investigating dangerous chemical accidents and releases. According to a supplement released Friday by the Office of Management and Budget, the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board would be 'permanently cancelled' by the end of September 2026. The proposal to eliminate the board's funding is 'part of the Administration's plans to move the Nation towards fiscal responsibility and to redefine the proper role of the Federal Government,' the supplement says. Advertisement It's not the first time President Donald Trump and OMB Director Russ Vought have tried to axe CSB.
CNN
a day ago
- Business
- CNN
Interviews with White House Budget Director Russ Vought; House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries; Senator Chris Murphy - State of the Union with Jake Tapper and Dana Bash - Podcast on CNN Audio
Interviews with White House Budget Director Russ Vought; House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries; Senator Chris Murphy State of the Union 47 mins On CNN's State of the Union, Dana Bash sits down for an exclusive interview with the man seen as the architect behind President Trump's scorched-earth effort to upend the federal government, White House Budget Director Russ Vought. Then, House Democratic Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries joins Dana to detail his party's plan to counter Trump's agenda, as well as respond to a new CNN poll showing Americans frustration with the Democratic Party. Next, Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy pushes back against Republican messaging around President Trump's massive spending and tax cut bill. Finally, Democratic Rep. Debbie Dingell, CNN Senior Political Commentator Scott Jennings, and CNN Political Commentators Jamal Simmons and Shermichael Singleton weigh in on Elon Musk's exit from the Trump administration, as well as early 2028 moves by Democrats.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Mike Johnson and Russ Vought Continue to Lie About Medicaid Cuts
Donald Trump's director of the Office of Management and Budget, Russ Vought, alleged without evidence that 'no one will lose [Medicaid] coverage as a result' of the House's proposed budget. House Speaker Mike Johnson similarly claimed 'People will not lose their Medicaid unless they choose to do so.' 'There are no Medicaid cuts in the big, beautiful bill,' Johnson said Sunday on NBC's Meet the Press. 'We're not cutting Medicaid.' 'This bill will preserve and protect the programs, the social safety net, but it will make it much more commonsense,' Vought said on CNN's State of the Union. 'Look, one out of every five or six dollars in Medicaid is improper. We have illegal immigrants on the program. We have able-bodied working adults that don't have a work requirement that they would have in TANF or even SNAP. And that's something that's very important to institute. That's what this bill does. No one will lose coverage as a result of this bill.' There's a lot to unpack here. Vought, who was a major architect of Project 2025, said that between one fifth and one sixth of Medicaid spending is 'improper.' According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, in 2024, however, just 7.66 percent of payments were considered 'improper.' But 'improper' covers a lot of payments, including underpayments, overpayments, and payments where there is not enough information to determine if a payment was proper. In other words, improper is not a synonym for fraudulent. Vought additionally claimed that undocumented immigrants are on Medicaid. Except for emergency room services in certain situations, federal Medicaid funds cannot be used to cover undocumented immigrants. Some states, however, have chosen to use their own funds to provide health coverage to undocumented immigrants, including children. Lastly, Vought and Johnson said the bill will not cause people to lose coverage. Several experts and organizations expose this for the lie that it is. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), if the Republican budget passes, it would reduce federal Medicaid spending by $723 billion, and 7.6 million people would lose Medicaid coverage by 2034, thanks in large part to new work requirements for those age 18-64. Other changes to the program, such as stricter and more frequent eligibility checks, will also likely lead to lost coverage. Citing two states that have implemented similar work requirements on Medicaid recipients to those proposed in the GOP bill, Jennifer Tolbert, deputy director of the Program on Medicaid and the Uninsured and the director of State Health Policy and Data at Kaiser Family Foundation, said on PBS, 'These new rules pose barriers to people enrolling in coverage and lead to coverage loss. And this is loss of coverage among people who are eligible for the requirements, but who have difficulty navigating the reporting requirements and providing the documentation needed to verify that they in fact meet the requirement.' The left-leaning Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, which estimated that up to 14.4 million people could lose coverage over the next 10 years, said, 'Research shows — and the CBO previously concluded — that work requirements do not increase employment. Instead, they lead enrollees who lose coverage to take on more medical debt, delay getting needed medical care, and delay taking medications.' Losing coverage can lead to serious consequences. Having coverage saves lives. One study by the National Bureau of Economic research found that Medicaid expansions increased enrollment by 12 percent and reduced mortality among low-income adults by 2.5 percent, and new Medicaid enrollees were 21 percent less likely to die compared to before they had coverage. More from Rolling Stone Trump Spreads Bizarre Conspiracy Theory That Biden Was Executed and Replaced by a Robot Clone How a Radical Ideology Infected the Supreme Court and Poisoned the Country 'Of Course I'm Going to Testify': Mike Lindell's Defamation Trial Is Going to Be Wild Best of Rolling Stone The Useful Idiots New Guide to the Most Stoned Moments of the 2020 Presidential Campaign Anatomy of a Fake News Scandal The Radical Crusade of Mike Pence
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
OMB director flatly denies megabill represents an attack on the social safety net
President Donald Trump's top budget officer is playing down concerns among Republican senators that the administration's sweeping megabill will add to the budget deficit and result in politically punishing Medicaid cuts. "We continue to work with people in the Senate as to working them through the specifics of the bill, what it does and what it doesn't do," Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought told CNN's Dana Bash on Sunday on "State of the Union." "We'll continue to do that. And I think at the end of the day, the Senate will have a resounding vote in favor of a substantially similar bill. Trump's domestic policy package, which passed the House by a single vote in May, faces a rocky road in the Senate. One obstacle: Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, as well as Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), have all signaled discomfort in the face of potential cuts to Medicaid. Despite Trump's insistence in April that there would be no cuts to the critical health program, a Congressional Budget Office report last month estimated 10.3 million people would lose coverage if the Medicaid portions of the megabill see daylight. Vought, who previously served as one of the chief architects of the much-maligned Project 2025 initiative, flatly denied that the bill represented an attack on social safety net programs. "I think they're totally ridiculous. This is astroturf. This bill will preserve and protect the programs, the social safety net, but it will make it much more common sense," Vought told Bash. "Look, one out of every $5 or $6 in Medicaid is improper. We have illegal immigrants on the program. We have able-bodied working adults that don't have a work requirement that they would have in TANF or even SNAP. And those are something that's very important to institute. That's what this bill does. No one will lose coverage as a result of this bill." Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock represents the only state with a work requirement program for Medicaid eligibility. Less than 7,000 people were enrolled in the first 18 months of Georgia's Pathways to Coverage initiative, vastly fewer than the state's initial expectations. And the project has been beset by administrative costs. "The data clearly shows that if you want to get people to work, the way to do that is to provide them just basic health care so that they don't get sick," Warnock, a Democrat, told Kristen Welker on NBC's "Meet the Press," also on Sunday. "And what they're trying to do now is take this terrible experiment in Georgia, force it on the whole nation. And what we will see as a result of that is a workforce that is sicker and poorer and an economy that's weaker." Deficit hawks, including Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson and Elon Musk, have also played up concerns about the bill's impact on the debt. "I think that's the Titanic," Johnson said in May. Johnson has said he has enough allies in the Senate to stop the process absent what he sees as adequate spending reductions. Musk told CBS he thinks the bill would increase the deficit and "undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing." "I love Elon, this bill doesn't increase the deficit or hurt the debt," Vought told Bash on Sunday. "In fact, it lowers it by $1.4 trillion."
