House Republicans have reached their limit with President Donald Trump overriding their funding decisions and now they are openly challenging the administration.
According to Politico, there is a “power struggle” underway between Republican House and Senate Appropriations Committee members and the president’s administration, which has run roughshod over their authority.
Earlier this month, GOP senators overwhelmingly agreed to a bipartisan government funding bill to temporarily block the Trump administration from letting political appointees steer money toward grants “aligned with the president’s agenda.”
The House could clear that bill next month, and Trump is expected to sign it to avert a shutdown before the midterms.
However, as Politico is reporting, while the days of widespread funding freezes might be over, the Trump administration continues to create new rules for federal grants and then deny funding based on them — only to be repeatedly shot down in court.
Lawmakers in both parties have blasted White House budget director Russ Vought for delaying the release of cash for congressionally backed programs for antipoverty services, foreign assistance, banking in underserved areas and more.
“Congress has appropriated money, and you don’t have the authority to impound it!” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) chastised Vought this spring over the withholding of hundreds of millions of dollars the Trump administration is supposed to send quarterly to states.
“Pocket rescissions would be a very interesting way to curry favor with the legislative branch — especially the one part of the legislative branch which has delivered on all of the administration’s s—,” outgoing Rep. Mark Amodei (R-NV) bitterly complained.
The Office of Management and Budget did not respond to requests for comment from Politico on whether the White House plans to execute new pocket rescissions in the coming weeks. Trump’s new pick for deputy director at the agency, Hal Duncan, told lawmakers this summer that the agency is not ruling out any “fiscal tools.”
House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-OK) said White House officials have given him no assurances that they won’t deploy the tactic again this year and that his reaction would hinge on the type of funding eliminated.
“It would depend on what it is — it really would,” the Oklahoma Republican admitted.
“At what point did we stop legislating?” Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), another senior appropriator, said after Vought privately pitched Senate Republicans on a party-line plan that would inherently take funding power away from the appropriations committees.
Murkowski was also among the Senate Republicans who criticized the White House for not seeking input from lawmakers before putting political appointees in charge of approving federal grants and minimizing the role of the objective peer-review process for selecting recipients.
“There was no consultation at all,” Murkowski, a rare Republican critic of Trump, said. “When you start issuing grants based on political connections, that’s not good for the system here.”
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