With the battle over FY2026 funding set to begin in earnest next week on Capitol Hill, the top House and Senate Democratic appropriators are accusing the White House of failing to disclose what it’s doing with hundreds of federal accounts and billions of dollars already approved by Congress.
The latest missive from Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) to OMB Director Russ Vought – which we’re reporting here first – shows how difficult the battle over government funding is going to be this summer and into the fall.
After months of DOGE-related layoffs for thousands of government employees, the elimination of USAID, an executive order calling for the end of the Education Department, a potential $1 billion cut to the D.C. budget and even a Trump administration official lamenting proposed spending cuts, the House Appropriations Committee is scheduled to begin subcommittee markups late next week on FY2026 spending bills.
The White House hasn’t delivered a full budget proposal yet, only a “skinny” budget plan that called for cutting $163 billion in non-defense spending while boosting Pentagon funding. The proposal stunned Democrats and moderate Republicans while setting up a contentious spending fight. House Appropriations Committee Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said he’s going to try to stick to the Trump plan as closely as he can.
But Murray and DeLauro accuse OMB of failing to provide information on spending for hundreds of programs within federal agencies, preventing appropriators from knowing exactly what’s going on inside those departments.
Here’s the opening sentence from their letter: “Your lack of transparency shows disdain for the right of the public to understand how taxpayer dollars are being spent and for the rule of law.” And that’s the nicest part.
More from Murray and DeLauro (this is long and detailed but worth reading):
Vought has long argued that the executive branch, not Congress, should have final say over where federal dollars are spent, which doesn’t make him any friends among Hill Democrats. Vought recently mocked a GAO opinion that found the Transportation Department can’t legally withhold $5 billion in electric vehicle infrastructure funding mandated under the 2021 infrastructure law. Vought called GAO’s opinion “Rearview mirror stuff.”
OMB also shut down a website in March that allowed federal spending to be tracked. That move led to some rare bipartisan pushback from House and Senate appropriators, including Cole. However, the website hasn’t been restored.
Plus, OMB delayed sending a $9 billion-plus rescissions package to Congress until the House finishes work on the reconciliation package.
We expect to see Cole and House GOP appropriators will roll out the first of their FY2026 spending bills early next week. The MilCon-VA and Agriculture subcommittees have scheduled markups for Thursday. Homeland Security and the classified portion of the Defense bill will be marked up the following week. Cole has set a full committee markup for the MilCon-VA bill for Tuesday, June 10.
Cole wants all 12 spending bills marked up by the full Appropriations Committee by late July, with some of them on the floor that month.
Also on the docket: The Senate will begin work on its version of the massive Republican reconciliation package next week. Both Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune say they want the reconciliation bill on President Donald Trump’s desk by July 4. We have our doubts about that timetable, although Johnson kept to his Memorial Day deadline for House action.
In this case, it’s doubly important because the reconciliation package is the vehicle Republicans are using for raising the debt limit. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says the federal government will run out of borrowing authority in August, so he wants the debt limit lifted by mid-July.
The House and Senate will be working on appropriations bills over the next couple of months, with government funding running out on Oct. 1. Sitting here now, a shutdown showdown is very possible, maybe even unavoidable, depending on what happens on reconciliation.
