I realize that obscure and technocratic phrases about the federal budget might make some readers scramble to click elsewhere, but stick with me for a minute, because the latest gambit from the White House’s budget office is as consequential as it is controversial. NBC News reported:
The White House informed Congress of its plans to cut $4.9 billion in foreign aid funding through a seldom-used budgetary tactic dubbed ‘pocket rescissions,’ two congressional sources tell NBC News.
Let’s pause here to review the difference between rescissions and “pocket” rescissions.
When Congress appropriates funds, the White House is obligated to spend the tax dollars accordingly. Presidents, at least for now, do not have the legal option of simply ignoring lawmakers’ wishes and impounding the money (although Richard Nixon tried and failed to do so).
But there is a legal mechanism in place that allows the White House to send Congress requests to undo funds that were appropriated but not spent. These are called rescissions packages. Once they arrive on Capitol Hill, lawmakers have 45 days either to approve the packages and un-spend the money, or to ignore the president’s request, which in turn would force the administration to do what Congress directed in the first place.
Sometimes, these requests are anodyne — if a spending project is completed under-budget, for example — while other times they’re highly problematic, such as the example we saw a couple of months ago. Either way, however, the process is legitimate and legally permissible.
“Pocket” rescissions are different.
As NBC News’ report explained, “A ‘pocket rescission’ is a secondary maneuver where the president attempts to cancel funding in a window of time so late in the fiscal year that there is not enough time for Congress to weigh in. Congress typically has a 45-day window to act on rescissions, but the fiscal year ends on Sept. 30, less than 45 days away.”
Russ Vought, the far-right director of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, has warned for months that he and his colleagues would have no qualms about using such a tactic, and it now appears he wasn’t bluffing.
Why should the public care? For a few reasons. First and foremost, the consensus view among most credible observers is that pocket rescissions are illegal. The Government Accounting Office has said so, explicitly.
While congressional Democrats responded to the White House’s abuse by emphasizing the degree to which it defies the law, they managed to receive at least some GOP backing on the point. Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, for example, said in a statement, “Any effort to rescind appropriated funds without congressional approval is a clear violation of the law.”
Similarly, Republican Rep. Mike Simpson of Idaho told The Hill, “Pocket rescissions, I think, are unconstitutional. … So we’ll see how it goes.”
To be sure, Donald Trump and his team have spent quite a bit of time expressing indifference to many legal limits, so it’s not altogether surprising that Vought and his office are shrugging off legal concerns, but there will be some vigorous lawsuits over this, and the law does not appear to be on the White House’s side.
Second, this isn’t just an academic exercise: The Republican administration, as part of its legally dubious power grab, intends to undo billions of dollars that Congress approved in international aid, including development assistance that was allocated for the U.S. Agency for International Development. People will suffer, in other words, if Team Trump succeeds. Finally, the White House’s radical effort makes a government shutdown later this month a lot more likely. For generations, Democrats and Republicans have advanced spending deals through bipartisan negotiations and compromises in which both parties end up with some of what they want. But if we’re entering an era in which presidents can decide to reject certain congressionally approved investments, then members, especially those in the minority, have no reason even to try to reach bipartisan deals, since they’ll have no guarantees the money will actually be spent. Responding to reporting on the White House’s pocket rescissions plan, Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut wrote online, “Trump is rooting for a shutdown. He knows he has created a huge problem because now any budget deal with Republicans isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.” A couple of months ago, a reporter asked White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, “Why would any Democrat vote for a bipartisan spending bill if Republicans can turn around and claw back the money the next day?” She barely even tried to answer, referring to funding for USAID as “crap,” before moving on. The shutdown deadline is four weeks away. Watch this space. This post updates our related earlier coverage.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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