White House budget director Russell Vought clashed with House Democrats on Tuesday as they challenged him on the administration’s enacted spending cuts, its budget proposal for fiscal year 2027 and his request for additional funding for his own agency.
The White House has asked Congress to cut non-defense spending by 10% for fiscal 2027 and to raise defense spending by 42% to an unprecedented $1.5 trillion.
At a House Appropriations Committee oversight hearing on Tuesday, Vought defended the president’s budget request and touted the Trump administration’s cuts across federal agencies, including efforts to shut down the United States Agency for International Development and the elimination of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
At the same time, he said that the White House Office of Management and Budget, which he leads, needs a budget boost and is going to have to use funding from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed by Republicans last year to maintain staffing levels.
OMB has asked for $146.1 million for fiscal year 2027, an increase of $17.1 million or 13.3%.
“We need OMB’s budget to grow, and it’s largely been flatlined for a number of years,” Vought said. He testified that the need for more funding is based on higher costs for rent in two locations while it moves offices, updating IT systems and additional security needs due to threats that he has faced.
Republicans provided another $100 million for the agency in their party-line law last year, and much of that funding remains available. Vought said that little of that money has been obligated so far, but that it will be used to hire staff in key areas, including fraud prevention and oversight of increased defense spending, as well as investments in technology. Vought said OMB hopes to expand its number of full-time employees from roughly 500 to 675.
Democrats lay into Vought: Vought has sought to exert more authority over federal spending, challenging Congress’s power. Democrats scolded him for such moves and challenged him on the effects of the Trump administration’s cuts.
“In your position as director of the Office of Management and Budget, you have asserted unprecedented control over taxpayer funding, a power of the purse that belongs to Congress under the Constitution,” Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said in opening remarks. “You have worked openly to undermine this essential authority guaranteed to the Congress and render it under the control of the Executive branch. I view it as an affront to the separation of powers and the very purpose of this committee.”
Rep. Mark Pocan of Wisconsin asked Vought if he believes the studies that have shown that people have died because of the administration’s cuts to USAID. A report issued earlier this month by House Oversight Committee Democrats said that the Trump administration’s dismantling of USAID “has already resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths and will lead to the deaths of millions more globally.” It cited estimates by experts that the effective closure of USAID had resulted in more than 600,000 preventable deaths in just over a year.
Vought pushed back on those claims, arguing that the reports were based on flawed methodology. “There is nothing about those studies that has caused us to think differently” about its cuts to certain programs, Vought said, arguing that many of the programs were “weaponized” and wasteful.
“It’s morally wrong to facilitate the death or children,” Pocan said, citing a Bible verse and Vought’s Christian beliefs.
“We’re not doing that,” Vought said. “We have adequate foreign aid.”