Republican Senator Susan Collins blasted President Donald Trump’s attempt to claw back nearly $5 billion in foreign aid so close to the end of the budget year as unlawful.
On Thursday night, the president’s budget office announced Trump was cancelling $4.9 billion in foreign aid using a tactic known as “pocket rescission.”
The rare move is when the president asks Congress to cancel funds so close to the end of the fiscal year that the funding expires before it can be used, whether Congress acts or not.
“Given that this package was sent to Congress very close to the end of the fiscal year when the funds are scheduled to expire, this is an apparent attempt to rescind appropriated funds without congressional approval,” Collins, the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said in a statement.
“Any effort to rescind appropriated funds without congressional approval is a clear violation of the law,” she said.
Trump attempted so-called “pocket recessions” during his first term but ultimately backed down. The last time it was used was about fifty years ago.
The senator pointed out that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) had already found such rescissions to be illegal and argued that only Congress has the power of the purse, but Trump’s budget office pushed back.
An Office of Management and Budget spokesperson claimed the president is “using his authority under the Impoundment Control Act to deploy a pocket rescission” and slammed the funding as “woke and weaponized foreign aid money that violates the President’s America First priorities.”
It pointed all the way back to President Jimmy Carter sending a rescission request to Congress in 1977 as another example of when it had been used. The Trump administration’s budget office noted that the GAO made recommendations to Congress in 1975 to amend the law, but the amendment did not occur.
However, the GAO, as recently as 2018 during Trump’s first term, reiterated that pocket rescissions were illegal under current law, and the Impoundment Control Act is not a way for the president to circumvent Congress.
This marks the second time the Trump administration has attempted to claw back money passed by Congress after its $9 billion rescissions package, canceling foreign aid and public broadcasting funds, barely scraped through Congress.
Collins, who voted to confirm Trump’s budget chief Russ Vought in February, argued that rather than attempting to “undermine the law,” the appropriate way for the administration to reduce excessive spending was through the annual appropriations process.
When Congress returns next month, lawmakers will have their work cut out for them as they gear up for a showdown over the budget for the upcoming spending year.
Collins’ blistering response to Trump’s attempted power grab was a rare moment of bipartisanship from Capitol Hill.
Senate Appropriations Committee Vice Chair Patty Murray blasted Trump’s budget chief Russ Vought for a “brazen attempt to usurp” congressional power.
“No lawmaker should accept this absurd, illegal ploy to steal their constitutional power to determine how taxpayer dollars get spent,” she said in a statement.
“No president has a line item veto—and certainly not a retroactive line item veto. Congress should reject this request and this ridiculous, illegal maneuver,” she added, arguing like Collins that spending decisions should be made through the Congressional appropriations process.
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