Ex-budget staffers weigh in against Trump 'pocket rescissions'

Paul M. Krawzak, CQ-Roll Call on Sep 2, 2025

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WASHINGTON — Ten former top budget and appropriations aides from both sides of the aisle wrote to congressional leaders Tuesday making impassioned arguments against the Trump administration’s use of a novel method of unilaterally canceling federal spending.

The letter warns that the attempt by Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought to cut spending without congressional approval “threatens to fracture the centuries-old process of careful compromises that underlies the passage of laws making appropriations and, consequently, heightens the risk of a government shutdown.”

Signatories include seven Republican ex-staffers and three former top Democratic aides, several of whom served during the formative years of the 1974 law laying out the modern budget process and restricting presidential impoundment of enacted appropriations.

Among them are Stephen Bell and G. Willam Hoagland, who combined to lead Senate Budget Committee GOP staff from 1981 to 2004; J. Keith Kennedy, the top Republican staffer on Senate Appropriations during two stints, from 1981 to 1997 and again in 2005-06; and Sean O’Keefe, a former top Senate Defense Appropriations aide and Pentagon comptroller who served as deputy budget director under President George W. Bush.

President Donald Trump on Aug. 28 sent Congress a proposal to rescind $4.9 billion in foreign aid funds. Under the 1974 law, also known as the Impoundment Control Act, Congress has 45 days to review the proposal — while the president withholds it from obligation — and pass legislation officially canceling the appropriations. But the funding will expire at the end of the fiscal year before the 45 days are up, so even if Congress does nothing, the money will still be canceled.

The Supreme Court has made clear that “the only way to amend a law is for Congress to pass and the president to sign another one,” the former budget and appropriations aides argue in their letter.

“Withholding funds through their date of expiration, and thus effectively amending the laws making these appropriations, is simply a different name for an unconstitutional line item veto,” they wrote.

Vought’s budget office defended the cuts as slashing “woke, wasteful and weaponized spending” approved initially by the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development with funding approved by Congress.

While the Government Accountability Office says such “pocket rescissions” are illegal, the administration argues the GAO changed its stance, having at one time concluded that Congress left open a loophole in the 1974 law that could allow this if not fixed. No such fix ever came.

In taking such action, Vought has “both laid the groundwork for an illegal pocket rescission and effectively eliminated Congress’s role in the process Congress established to preserve its own authority over the nation’s purse strings,” the former budget and appropriations aides wrote.

The list of signatories also includes Charles Kieffer, the former longtime Democratic staff director for Senate Appropriations; Jim Dyer, a former House Appropriations GOP staff director; Thomas Kahn, the House Budget Committee’s former top Democratic aide; Charlie Houy, a veteran Senate Defense Appropriations aide who served as the full committee’s Democratic staff director; Sheila Burke, who was chief of staff to then-Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, R-Kan.; and Scott Gudes, a former Senate Budget Republican staff director and appropriations aide in both chambers.

Shutdown showdown

Top Democrats are signaling they will fight the White House’s maneuver, raising the possibility of no deal on a stopgap spending bill to avert a partial government shutdown when the current fiscal year ends on Sept. 30.

“Senate Democrats have shown firsthand that we are willing to work in a bipartisan way to keep our government open by advancing bipartisan appropriations bills,” Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., wrote to fellow congressional leaders Monday. “However, the Trump administration is waging an all-out war against Congress’ Article I authority and the constitutional balance of power. Senate Republicans must decide: stand up for the legislative branch or enable Trump’s slide toward authoritarianism.”

Top Senate GOP appropriators have begun to weigh in against the move as well. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, who leads the Interior-Environment Appropriations Subcommittee, on Monday added her voice to that of Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins, R-Maine, who said last week she opposed the pocket rescission.

“The fact is, advancing the final appropriations bills and avoiding a government shutdown will require a great deal of hard work and collaboration when Congress resumes session next week,” Murkowski said in a message posted on the social platform X. “These unilateral actions by OMB only threaten the good bipartisan work that has been done in committee and on the floor, and risk throwing the entire process into chaos.”