President Trump on Friday launched another attack on Congress’s power of the purse. The White House informed congressional leaders that the president is unilaterally canceling nearly $1 billion in what it calls “harmful government spending” — funding that Congress previously approved.
The president’s provocative move is known as a “pocket rescission,” and many lawmakers say it’s illegal, as does the Government Accountability Office, an independent, nonpartisan watchdog agency.
What is a pocket rescission? Trump is invoking a power granted to him under the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974, which allows him to request that Congress rescind appropriated funding and sets up a process in which the funds in question must be released unless Congress has acted on the request within 45 days of continuous session.
Pocket rescissions game that law, landing within the 45-day timeframe, leaving lawmakers with little time to handle the request and prevent the proposed cuts.
“A pocket rescission could allow a president to avoid spending the money regardless of whether Congress approves the rescission request,” the GAO said in a blog post last year. “This would cede Congress’s power of the purse by allowing a president to, in effect, change the law by shortening the period of availability for fixed-period funds.” It added: “The Impoundment Control Act (ICA) does not provide that authority. If Congress wanted a president to have that authority, it would need to change the law.”
Despite such warnings, the Trump White House used the maneuver last year, requesting the cancellation of $4.9 billion in foreign aid funding. After a legal challenge, the Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision, lifted a lower court’s order requiring some $4 billion in funding to be spent as intended. The court did not rule on the legality of pocket rescissions more broadly, but White House budget director Russell Vought declared it a “major victory.” The White House continues to say that pocket rescissions are a proper use of presidential authority under the Impoundment Control Act.
What Trump wants to cut now: Trump’s new request came just five days before the end of the fiscal year on September 30, with the House already gone until November and the Senate preparing to leave as well.
The White House said Trump is canceling $810 million in funding across 11 rescissions, much of it for programs and services aimed at immigrants, minorities, climate programs and students. Most of the cuts, $567 million, would come from funding for the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Refugee Resettlement.
In a letter detailing his request, Trump said the program “is overfunded due to the Administration's successful border policies” and that the cut would be “consistent with the Administration's goal of ending the use of Federal taxpayer dollars to support non-citizens, putting Americans first.”
Other funding would be cut from the Departments of Commerce, Education, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Justice and Treasury.
Appropriators blast Trump’s end run: The request drew the ire of lawmakers in both parties, who bristled at the attempt to usurp their authority over spending.
Republican Sen. Susan Collins, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, said the rescission request had come without warning or consultation and was a “clear violation of the law.” She laid into the White House budget office, led by Russell Vought, in a statement posted on X.
“This is the most recent attempt by this Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to undermine Congress’s Constitutional power of the purse,” Collins said. “This move shows that OMB intentionally withheld these funds for months to execute this unlawful cancellation of appropriations that were approved on a bipartisan basis and signed into law.”
Readers on X added a community note pointing out that Collins, now running for reelection in a key contest that could help decide control of the Senate, “voted to confirm OMB Director Vought, despite Vought’s known support for the President’s efforts to impound Congressionally-approved funds.”
Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democratic appropriator in the Senate, said that Democrats have identified other funding that the Trump administration appears poised to spend or withhold in defiance of Congress.
“This is theft from the American people, plain and simple,” Murray said. “These are funds Congress has delivered on a bipartisan basis and should be helping people—not cut off by a president more focused on building a ballroom than investing in families.”
Murray noted that Democrats had fought to include language in the latest government funding extension that would prevent the Trump administration from pursuing another pocket rescission but were blocked by Republicans.
“Russ Vought’s message to Congress is that your votes don’t count, and your laws are optional. It is now time for my Republican colleagues who said they would never let this happen to stand up and join us to stop this,” Murray said.
The pocket rescission may also complicate appropriators’ efforts to negotiate compromises on full-year funding. Lawmakers are unlikely to trust any deals on spending if the president can swoop in later and unilaterally decide what money does or does not get spent.
The bottom line: There’s a big battle over government funding coming after Election Day.