The House and Senate are out of session.
Let’s talk about the FY2025 spending fight and what it means for President-elect Donald Trump and Congress.
Trump has announced Russell Vought as his pick for OMB director, which would be a return to this powerful post for Vought if he’s confirmed. The 48-year-old Vought — who played a supporting role in the events that led to Trump’s 2020 impeachment — could end up having as big an impact early on as any of the president-elect’s picks.
Vought — who spent a dozen years on Capitol Hill as a House and Senate budget staffer — strongly opposed the 2023 spending deal between President Joe Biden and then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Vought worked with hardline conservatives to try to undermine the Fiscal Responsibility Act.
Hill Democrats now are seeking an FY2025 spending deal based on the FRA, basically an extension of what happened earlier this year under Speaker Mike Johnson. Vought didn’t like that deal either.
Johnson wants to pass a short-term continuing resolution into next year, which would give Trump and Vought — a key Project 2025 author — a chance to shape any eventual spending deal. It also eases the pressure on Johnson heading into a Jan. 3 floor vote for speaker as conservatives back this approach. The CR may include disaster relief funding, although that package isn’t likely to be anywhere as big as the nearly $99 billion that Biden is seeking.
Depending on how long the CR extends funding, Trump thus could begin his second term with a huge budget fight led by someone who Democrats, uhh, dislike intensely.
For Trump, this is shaping up to be a repeat of 2017, when the appropriations battle dragged into May. It will impact Trump’s “100 Days” agenda, at least as far as Congress is concerned. There are other challenges on that front, however.
Also lurking out there is a debt-limit hike, which is worth paying attention to soon. Under the Fiscal Responsibility Act, the debt limit was suspended until Jan. 1. The Treasury Department can extend this deadline for an undetermined period — usually several months — using “extraordinary measures.”
Vought is among those in the past who have advocated using the debt-limit vote and threat of a default to extract huge spending cuts. We’ll see how Trump handles this issue soon after he returns to the Oval Office.
Vought, who has proposed huge cuts to discretionary funding and Medicaid, is among those Trump allies looking to challenge Congress’ authority over spending via impoundment. The longstanding view is that the president must spend money appropriated by Congress. Vought has made clear that he sees appropriations as a “ceiling not a floor,” which translates into the belief that the president can refuse to spend funds approved by Congress.
Democrats vehemently reject the impoundment argument, believing it violates the Constitution, so we may see legal challenges if the Trump administration tries this in a large-scale way.
“The Constitution gives Congress the power of the purse, and nowhere does it give the White House any unilateral power to impound funds appropriated by Congress,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro (Conn.), top Democrat on the House Appropriation Committee.
Like Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy — who will head up the “Department of Government Efficiency” for Trump, an advisory panel — Vought has said funding for any department or agency that’s not reauthorized is ripe for cutting. Trump, with Vought’s help, also redirected billions of dollars from the Pentagon to the U.S.-Mexico border wall. The Supreme Court later upheld this move.
All of this is a huge challenge for Congress on the spending front. Now pair it with Trump’s comments on recess appointments, his vow to use executive authority to revise the status of tens of thousands of federal employees to make them easier to fire, the Musk-Ramaswamy effort, and the flurry of other “Dictator for a Day” moves that Trump has telegraphed. Big changes are coming to Washington.
Latest on Raskin: We scooped on Friday that Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) is being urged by many of his colleagues to make a play for the ranking member post at the House Judiciary Committee by challenging Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.).
There’s been a lot of buzz among House Democrats about this over the weekend — to say the least. The latest read is that Raskin may not make the move. Raskin didn’t respond to requests for comment, so it’s still unclear what the Maryland Democrat will do. We’ll stay on top of this for you.
