Trump’s regime is rushing to consolidate power in the federal government and force through their billionaire-backed, corrupt agenda by weaponizing budget maneuvers and experimenting with illegal spending schemes they’ve tried to hide. This subject can get a little wonky, but here’s what you need to know and what we can do about it.
First, let’s go over some federal budget terms you might have heard related to this:
- Impoundment = any action or inaction that stops federal funds from being spent as directed by Congress. Presidents do not have the authority to unilaterally impound funds - they must seek Congress’ permission.
- Rescission = a type of impoundment where the president can seek Congress’ permission to cancel some of the funding allocated for a particular program or purpose. Congress must approve the proposal (via simple majority vote in each chamber) within 45 days or else the president must spend the funds as directed by law.
- “Pocket rescission” = when the president proposes a rescission so close to the end of the fiscal year that Congress doesn’t have time to consider it within the required 45 day window, and therefore the president illegally tries to get away with bypassing Congress and not spending the funds.
Trump weaponized impoundments in his first term - you may recall he was impeached by the House for withholding aid to Ukraine in an attempt to get dirt on his rivals. But since returning to office in January, Trump and his budget chief Russ Vought - a chief architect of Project 2025 - have taken these spending shenanigans to a whole new level. They’re not just freezing funding left and right for anything Trump doesn’t like - they’re using federal funding as a cudgel to punish states with Democratic leaders, to dismantle the agencies responsible for rooting out corruption and protecting public health, and to create so much chaos that some institutions are bending the knee to Trump before he even holds funding over their head.
Here’s just a few examples of what Trump and Vought have done since January:
- Rammed through the first-ever rescissions package to cancel out bipartisan funding: Most rescissions are done through the normal appropriations process, but in July Trump and Republicans used a fast-tracking procedure to cancel funding for public broadcasting and humanitarian programs with Republican-only votes.
- Proposed an illegal “pocket rescission”: By gaming the process and proposing more rescissions so late in the fiscal year, Trump is manipulating the law to try to fully defund the rest of USAID, the federal agency that oversees humanitarian aid programs. A federal judge ruled that this move is clearly illegal, but the MAGA Supreme Court sided with Trump while he appeals the ruling.
- Stole hundreds of billions of dollars from our communities through backdoor cuts straight out of Project 2025, like:
- Terminating thousands of research grants without notice
- Attacking the federal workforce and shutting down offices to prevent them from administering programs people rely on
- Freezing funding - for example for public schools and food assistance, infrastructure investments, rural programs, and more
- Making up burdensome paperwork requirements designed to indefinitely hold up the process for getting funds out the door to our communities
- Sending unqualified, unaccountable MAGA zealots and DOGE bros to push political interference over following the law
- Refused to comply with the most basic transparency requirements:Trump and Vought took down the congressionally-mandated website designed to track federal spending and only reinstated the site when forced to by a court order. Because of this and other attempts to hide information from the public, there are BILLIONS of taxpayer dollars that have become “virtually untraceable” in Trump’s hands.
What can we do to stop Trump and Republicans from stealing from our communities?
- Any funding bill must include accountability language (such as the provisions proposed by Democrats) that at minimum:
- Prohibits pocket rescissions, and
- Mandates any rescission proposals go through the normal appropriations process - no fast-tracking with Republican-only votes.
- Congress must conduct rigorous oversight and demand Trump comply with federal law, including by:
- Conducting oversight investigations into how much funding the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is illegally withholding or otherwise interfering with (building on Democrats’ investigations)
- Establishing an inspector general position at OMB – no more free reign for Russ Vought
- We need to educate our communities about how Trump and Republicans are stealing from everyday Americans and robbing our services to benefit their wealthy friends and MAGA loyalists.
- People don’t need to know what a “rescission” is to know Trump needs to stop sitting on funding meant for the people and start following the law. Don’t get bogged down in terminology; just focus on the impact.
- Share stories of how people in your community have been impacted by Trump’s illegal power grab - for example because of research grants being cut, or infrastructure funding withheld, or federal workers put on leave, etc.
- Use data of local impact and stories to crank up the heat on Republicans in Congress to rein in Trump.
Indivisible strongly supports partner organizations like Public Citizen who are leading litigation efforts to fight Trump’s spending shenanigans in the courts and hold him accountable, and at the same time we know the courts won’t be enough to stop him - that’s why it will take all of us using every tool available, including pressuring Congress, to rein him in. We know that Trump and his cronies will continue to try to violate the law, no matter what language we put in a bill. But we can make their illegal moves more difficult, and give litigators more tools to stop their efforts in court. Congress must put an end to Trump’s illegal weaponization of the budget as well as stop him from continuing to steal from our communities.