If confirmed, Russell Vought will succeed Shalanda Younger, who has served on this position since March 2022.
Senate Democrats questioned Russ Vought, President-elect Donald Trump’s selection to steer the Workplace of Administration and Funds (OMB) for a second time, relating to his views on the facility of the purse.
Vought, who succeeded Trump’s first OMB director, Mick Mulvaney, in 2019, appeared earlier than the Homeland Safety and Governmental Affairs Committee for his Jan. 15 affirmation listening to.
Lawmakers repeatedly requested Vought if he would uphold the legislation and chorus from withholding funding for packages Congress has appropriated.
“Given your report, I’ve critical questions on whether or not you might be trusted to hold out the legal guidelines that Congress has handed beneath the Structure,” mentioned Sen. Gary Peters (D-Ind.).
Vought disagreed and famous that the OMB “adopted the legislation constantly” throughout his tenure.
“We didn’t maintain inappropriately funds,” Vought mentioned. “We had been engaged in a coverage course of with regard to how funding would move to Ukraine. We launched the funding by the top of the fiscal yr.”
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) questioned if Vought believed the Impoundment Management Act was constitutional.
“No, I don’t consider it’s constitutional,” he replied. “The president ran on that view. That’s his view, and I agree.”
Blumenthal said that Vought would “merely take the legislation” into his personal arms and disrespect earlier Supreme Court docket rulings that deemed the laws to be constitutional.
“I’m astonished and aghast that somebody on this accountable place would, in impact, say that the president is above the legislation and that the US Supreme Court docket is entitled to their opinion, however mine ought to supersede it,” the longtime senator said
“It’s simply baffling that we’re on this, I believe, unprecedented second within the historical past of this nation. And I believe our colleagues must be equally aghast as a result of this concern goes past Republican or Democrat.”
Vought resisted, responding that he didn’t specific or indicate that place on behalf of the incoming administration.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), the committee chair, expressed understanding of his Democratic colleagues’ views on the facility of the purse. Nevertheless, he criticized Congress for its poor efficiency in defining clear pointers.
“If we need to restrict what the president does with transferring cash round, which I’m sympathetic to, we must always have the facility of the purse,” Paul mentioned.
“We acquired to jot down higher laws.”
Homeland Safety and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Gary Peters (D-Mich) and Rating Member Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) in Washington on April 18, 2024. Andrew Harnik/Getty Pictures
If confirmed, Vought will succeed Shalanda Younger, who has served on this position since March 2022.
Undertaking 2025
Whereas not the central focus for lawmakers, senators did make passing references to Vought’s contributions to the Undertaking 2025 agenda.
In his ready testimony to the senators, the president of the Middle for Renewing America championed “a powerful interagency course of” to facilitate the perfect outcomes for the nation.
“A robust interagency course of delivers the perfect outcomes for all People, and I consider OMB’s collaborative ethos is vital to attaining these outcomes,” he mentioned.
Vought confused the significance of responsibly managing taxpayer sources to handle the plight of the nation’s “forgotten women and men.”
“Now we have to make use of taxpayer {dollars} correctly as a result of inflation—pushed by irresponsible federal spending—taxes People twice,” Vought informed lawmakers. “The common American family has misplaced roughly $2,000 of buying energy since January 2021.”
The doc contained a chapter titled “Government Workplace of the President of the US,” penned by Vought. This portion of the conservative coverage playbook examines the highest funds workplace and asserts that the OMB has been overrun by “careerists.”
He additionally advocated that the OMB advance the president’s financial agenda moderately than people setting their very own agenda. Moreover, Vought said that the OMB director and his political workers ought to submit a fiscal goal to the president within the early levels of the funds improvement course of to rein within the authorities’s “fiscal irresponsibility.”
“Although some mistakenly regard it as a mere paper-pushing train, the President’s funds is actually a robust mechanism for setting and implementing public coverage at federal companies,” Vought wrote.
“OMB’s funds crew performs a key position in executing coverage throughout the manager department, together with at many companies wrongly thought to be ‘impartial.’”
“Now we have to unravel the woke and the weaponized paperwork and have the president take management of the manager department,” Vought mentioned. “There could also be totally different methods with every one in every of them about the way you dismantle them, however as an administration, the entire notion of an impartial company must be thrown out.”
All through the election marketing campaign, Trump repeatedly disavowed Undertaking 2025 and insisted that he by no means learn the proposal.
“I’ve nothing to do with Undertaking 2025,” Trump mentioned in his solely debate with Vice President Kamala Harris in September. “I haven’t learn it. I don’t need to learn it purposely. I’m not going to learn it.”