Russ Vought Appears Before Senate Appropriators

By: Ellen Kuo
Wednesday, July 9, 2025
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russ Vought, a significant contributor to Project 2025 and a key supporter of the Trump administration’s efforts to drastically shrink the federal government, appeared before Senate appropriators on June 25 to discuss the $9.4 billion rescission package before them and its ramifications. The $9.4 billion rescissions package includes $1.1 billion in cuts for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which provides funding to National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service. The package also requests $8.3 billion in cuts to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

Vought told appropriators this was an opportunity to cut funding for programs Republicans have long wanted to slash, such as public broadcasting and the HIV and AIDS foreign aid program known as the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). However, there was bipartisan concern among Senators about the impact of cuts to CPB on local radio communication efforts, and Senator Mitch McConnell questioned how implementing these Department of Government Efficiency recommendations would weaken America’s soft power abroad and end up costing the country more if a war broke out. 

Senator Susan Collins, who chairs the committee, said in her opening statement, “We convene today to review the special message transmitted on June 3 by the President under the Impoundment Control Act (ICA). The ICA was enacted in the 1970s to protect Congress’ constitutional authority with regard to spending. It provides guardrails to ensure that appropriations laws are enforced, while also creating a framework for the President to work collaboratively with Congress to prevent unnecessary expenditures. Under the ICA, the President can propose rescissions, but funding can only be canceled through an act of Congress.” 

Collins pointed out that rescissions are put in appropriations bills all the time and that reprogramming of funds can also be done with communications and approval of the appropriate subcommittees in both chambers. The process provided in the ICA is neither the only nor the primary way for Congress to effectuate rescissions. For example, the recent year-long continuing resolution (CR) included nearly 70 rescissions totaling billions of dollars. She was critical of the lack of consultation with her committee before this rescission package was sent to Congress.

She also made the point that the CPB funds local media programs in Maine, and she did not want a wholesale cut for it. She was also puzzled that OMB is asking for cuts in a budget approved by the Trump administration under the year-long CR for fiscal year 2025, and she pushed back on Vought’s statement that no lifesaving treatments would be impacted. She also said she did not have the details she needed of the impacts of this rescission package, which was echoed by other Senators, while she held up enriched food supplements and prenatal vitamins that she said were already being held up for distribution. Vought countered that liberal nongovernmental organizations were not using the funds for preventive care but for activities that both sides of the aisle would find objectionable.

Ranking member Patty Murray was not in support of the “partisan rescission package” and pointed out how OMB pulled down the website on how OMB is spending appropriated money. She was also deeply concerned that a pocket rescission would take place in the future if Congress did not stand up to the administration by rejecting this recission package. 

When Murray asked if more rescission packages would come, Vought said it was up to the president while leaving the door open to the administration sending up a spending cancellation request, known as a "pocket rescission," within 45 days of the fiscal year’s end. Such an executive branch "tool," as Vought described it, would be aimed at sidestepping a legal requirement for Congress to approve a rescission request before it can be enacted. “We believe we have under the law numerous options with regard to how to achieve savings, including rescissions that are timed at the end of the fiscal year,” Vought said.