Russ Vought: Appropriations process ‘has to be less bipartisan’
The OMB director said more rescissions packages could soon be headed to the Hill.
Katherine Tully-McManus
07/17/2025, 11:11am ET
Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought isn’t interested in giving assurances to lawmakers on Capitol Hill that the White House will abide by any bipartisan spending agreements made this year.
“The appropriations process has to be less bipartisan,”Vought told reporters at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast Thursday.
With Republicans in full control of government, he said now is the time for reining in spending, even without input from Democrats on Capitol Hill. He did not lay out a legislative path for partisan spending bills to clear the Senate, where 60 votes are required to pass legislation.
Vought said he’s looking to “change the paradigm” of the way appropriations has worked, pointing to the continued use of stopgap spending bills.
“It’s not going to keep me up at night, and I think will lead to better results, by having the appropriations process be a little bit partisan,and I don’t think it’s necessarily leading to a shutdown,”he added.
Majority Leader John Thune, however, said Vought’s assertion “runs contrary” to the Senate’s mathematical reality that Republicans need Democratic support to avoid a shutdown when the current stopgap funding bill expires on Sept. 30.
“It’s going to take 60 [votes] to fund the government,” said Thune, adding, “we plan to move [appropriations] bills that will have cooperation from the Democrats.”
Yet Vought, when specifically asked if he would reassure Democratic appropriators that the White House would abide by bipartisan spending agreements or commit to not using rescissions on future appropriations bills,he simply said he would not.
“There is no voter in the country that went to the polls and said, ‘I’m voting for a bipartisan appropriations process,’” Vought said. “That may be the view of something that appropriators want to maintain.”
His comments on the appropriations process come as the White House is on the precipice of a major win with the first partisan rescissions package expected to pass the House this week.
“We are willing to send up additional rescissions. I think if this continues to pass, we’re likely to send up another rescissions package that would come soon, and we’ll be working on that to try to get that across the finish line,” Vought said.
Democrats were incensed.(as always)
“Russ Vought is boasting about how he isn’t interested in following the laws Congress passes and, of course, vowing to send up another rescissions package soon,” said Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, panel in a statement. “It is past time that Republicans stand up for Congress as a co-equal branch of government.”
Vought said he was “willing to work with Democrat appropriators if they conduct themselves with decorum” but that he’s seeking “a great relationship with” Republicans on the House and Senate spending panels.
He did acknowledge that federal spending power lies with Congress, even as he seeks to override their final spending decisions, while adding, “It is one of the most constitutional foundational principles, but that power of the purse does not mean — It’s a ceiling. It is not a floor.”
Vought also reiterated his view, and that of President Donald Trump, that the 51-year-old Impoundment Control Act, which bars the president from withholding congressional-approved funds without asking Congress, is unconstitutional.
https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2025/07/17/congress/russ-vought-appropriations-process-has-to-be-less-bipartisan-00459479
Yes do exactly what democrats do, fuck em