Collins, Murray denounce cancellation as GAO calls maneuver illegal
Most of the cuts focus on services for immigrants, including nonprofit organizations that serve refugees and unaccompanied minors who are accused of being in the country illegally, according to the Guardian. The administration said the funds are no longer necessary because illegal border crossings have diminished considerably. A White House press release announcing the funding rescissions notes that some of the organizations are led by people who worked in the administration of Democratic president Barack Obama.
The cancellation was announced with five days remaining in the federal fiscal year. Typically, Congress can review the president’s proposed spending cuts before they take effect, but Trump made that all but impossible by announcing them so close to the end of the fiscal year. The Government Accountability Office has called the tactic, known as a “pocket rescission,” illegal.
Senator Susan Collins, a Maine Republican who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee and faces a difficult re-election campaign, criticized the action. Collins said the cancellation came without warning or consultation, and said she would work with colleagues to address “these illegal actions.” The senator said the maneuver was both an unreported impoundment and a violation of Congress’s constitutional authority over federal spending. “Not only is the delay itself an impoundment that was not reported to Congress, but also it is a usurpation of Congress’s appropriations powers,” Collins said. “OMB is an agency of the executive branch. It does not get to decide which programs are worth funding.”
Senator Patty Murray of Washington, the committee’s vice chair and a Democrat, said in a statement: “This is theft from the American people, plain and simple.” Murray said the funding had been delivered on a bipartisan basis and criticized the administration’s priorities. “These are funds Congress has delivered on a bipartisan basis and should be helping people – not cut off by a president more focused on building a ballroom than investing in families,” Murray said. “Every Republican who voted for these bills should be furious, because [Russell] Vought is saying their votes don’t count.”
Collins said the action was the latest attempt by OMB to “undermine Congress’s constitutional power of the purse.” A year ago, Trump issued a pocket rescission for the first time in 50 years, blocking $4.9bn in congressionally approved foreign aid. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to block those rescissions, saying Trump’s authority over foreign affairs weighed heavily in its decision. This year’s rescission targets domestic spending.
The use of a pocket rescission fits a broader pattern in which the Trump administration has sought greater control over the federal government, eroding Congress’s power relative to the executive branch, according to the Guardian. The administration has also fired federal workers, imposed a historic increase in tariffs, and started a war in Iran without going through Congress, placing the burden on the judicial branch to determine the limits of presidential power.