Dems Plot to Stop Trump's 'Pocket Rescission'

Amid Democrats' relentless obstruction of Department of Government Efficiency cost-cutting plans, White House allusions to use the "pocket rescission" has Democrats plotting how to keep the Trump administration from cutting waste, fraud, and abuse in this way, too.

White House Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought is tasked with managing President Donald Trump's agenda on cutting government spending and has mentioned using "all manner of provisions."

Sources told The New York Times that might include issuing spending rescission requests near the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30, forcing a 45-day window for Congress to debate the claw-back of spending, which ultimately puts funds on hold long enough for it just to expire anyway, since unspent funds do not roll over to the next year.

"It's a provision that has been rarely used, but it is there," Vought told CNN recently, touching off the Times and Democrats' concerns about the potential end-run on obstruction of cutting waste. "And we intend to use all of these tools."

Vought also teased the strategy on a reporters call earlier this month, the Times reported, as a way to cut spending "without having to get an affirmative vote" from Congress.

Sources told the Times that Vought's talk of using the pocket rescission strategy might merely be a leveraging tactic on gridlock-seeking Democrats in Congress, but regardless, it has Democrats planning on how to stop the Trump White House there, too.

"OMB Director Vought presumes he can go around the back of the president, the Congress, and the American people to assert a unilateral power over spending for himself above all others," Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., wrote in a statement.

DeLauro and Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., the top two Democrats overseeing the execution of former President Joe Biden-era appropriations, issued a recent report that said the White House had already put the brakes on $425 billion.

In an effort to keep that Biden spigot flowing, the Democrats' analysis claims that money is for cancer research, childcare centers, and natural disasters, has all been curtailed, which the White House denies, the Times reported.

The pocket rescission strategy began under President Gerald R. Ford, but it has been fought and legally debated since, potentially setting up another showdown between Democrats, their lawyers, and the White House, according to the Times.

Vought argued for the authorized presidential power of pocket rescission in a June 1 appearance on CNN.

"We may not actually have to get Congress to pass the rescissions bills," Vought told Dana Bash on June 1. "We have executive tools. We have impoundment that 200 years of presidents had the ability and the recognition that they had the ability to spend less than the ceiling.

"If you have $100 million that Congress says we want you to go and use for particular use and you can do it for less, for 200 years, that was totally appropriate. And since the 1970s, that has changed and has led to massive waste, fraud, and abuse.

"Secondly, the very Impoundment Control Act itself allows for a procedure called pocket rescissions later in the year to be able to bank some of these savings without the bill actually being passed. It's a provision that has been rarely used, but it is there. And we intend to use all of these tools.

"We want Congress to pass it where it's necessary. We also have executive tools. And that is something we're going to be working with Congress."