Washington — President Trump is looking to claw back nearly $5 billion in foreign aid funds that Congress already approved, deploying a rarely used maneuver known as a pocket rescission to withhold funding without lawmakers’ authorization.
The move has prompted bipartisan pushback from Capitol Hill, with one top Republican calling it “unlawful.”
In a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson posted on X by the White House Office of Management and Budget, the president said he was proposing “15 rescissions of budget authority, totaling $4.9 billion.” The cuts include funding for the State Department as well as the U.S. Agency for International Development and international development and assistance programs.
Mr. Trump has previously tried to nix foreign aid Congress has already approved, and lawmakers voted to go along with the cuts in July. But Mr. Trump’s pocket rescission is an attempt to rescind funding unilaterally. OMB insists this move is within the president’s power.
“For the first time in nearly 50 years, the president is using his authority under the Impoundment Control Act to deploy a pocket rescission, cancelling $4.9 billion in woke and weaponized foreign aid money that violates the president’s America first priorities,” an OMB spokesperson told CBS News.
Under the Impoundment Control Act, the president can propose rescissions of budget authority, which Congress has 45 legislative days to approve. But if proposals are made late in the fiscal year, the funds can effectively be withheld until they expire. The current fiscal year ends on Sept. 30. The last pocket rescission occurred in 1977, according to the Government Accountability Office, Congress’s nonpartisan watchdog agency.
Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine and chair of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, immediately pushed back against the president’s plan to not spend money that lawmakers approved.
“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 said in a statement, adding that the GAO “has concluded that this type of rescission is unlawful and not permitted by the Impoundment Control Act.”
“Article I of the Constitution makes clear that Congress has the responsibility for the power of the purse,” she said. “Any effort to rescind appropriated funds without congressional approval is a clear violation of the law.”
In a decision in 2018, the GAO concluded that the Impoundment Control Act “does not permit the impoundment of funds through their date of expiration.” An OMB official pointed to a GAO decision from 1975 that found funding in a proposed rescission lapsed at the end of the fiscal year under the ICA, noting that GAO had proposed changes to the law that Congress has not adopted.
Mr. Trump’s pocket rescission appears to raise the chances of a government shutdown at the end of September, when funding for federal agencies expires. Sixty votes are needed in the Senate to approve spending bills, meaning Republicans will need the votes of at least seven Democrats to avoid a shutdown.
The administration reneging on previously passed spending threatens to erode Democrats’ confidence that any deal they reach with Republicans would be honored by the White House. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York hinted at that dynamic in a statement, saying the president and his Republican allies are “hellbent on rejecting bipartisanship and ‘going it alone’ this fall.”
“Reasonable Republicans don’t have to go along with the madness; Republicans don’t have to be a rubber stamp for this carnage. Democrats stand ready to work with anyone to help American families, lower health care costs and secure our communities,” Schumer said. “But if Republicans are insistent on going it alone, Democrats won’t be party to their destruction.”
Kathryn Watson is a politics reporter for CBS News Digital, based in Washington, D.C.
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