Senate Republicans called on the Trump administration Wednesday to use the formal rescissions process to claw back money already appropriated by Congress that the “Department of Government Efficiency” has identified as wasteful.
It’s also a way to avoid legal setbacks that have befallen the White House in its push to freeze agency budgets and programs, including foreign aid accounts.
One day after President Donald Trump singled out small-dollar examples of waste in his joint address to Congress, the de facto leader of the DOGE effort, Elon Musk, came to the Capitol to soothe concerns over how some of the cuts have been implemented. Many lawmakers have expressed alarm at the wholesale gutting of agencies and the firing of thousands of federal employees.
Hoping to regain some of their power of the purse, senators asked Musk at a private lunch to have the White House submit a rescissions package for congressional approval for any funding it deems fraudulent or wasteful. Congress would then have 45 days to approve the request, or else the money must be spent as appropriated once the clock runs out.
“What we got to do as Republicans is capture their work product, put it in a bill and vote on it,” Senate Budget Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told reporters. “So the White House, I’m urging them to come up with a rescission package.”
Graham said Musk was receptive to the idea and hadn’t known about the rescissions process as an available tool to cut spending.
“He was doing like this,” Graham said of Musk, while raising his arms in the air in a triumphant gesture. “So it’s time for the White House now to go on offense. We’re losing altitude here. … And the way you can regain altitude is to take the work product, get away from the personalities and the drama, take the work product and vote on it.”
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said he asked Musk to consider a rescissions bill of at least $100 billion and perhaps a series of such bills that could ultimately claw back as much as $500 billion of already appropriated funds.
He said such a move might also “make those of us who are skeptical about reconciliation, adding to the debt, might be a little bit more open to it if we’re actually going to … make the spending cuts real and permanent.”
The rescissions process also holds appeal for Republicans because it requires only a simple majority vote in the Senate for approval, not the typical 60-vote threshold that would require Democratic buy-in.
Better than ‘impoundment’?
Paul and Graham said the rescission process, and potential further clawbacks as part of the separate budget reconciliation process Republicans are undertaking, could avoid the messy legal fight over the 1974 budget law that restricts a president’s ability to “impound,” or freeze, appropriated funds.
Trump and his budget director, Russ Vought, have said they regard that law as unconstitutional. Efforts to freeze funding in various agencies have already triggered court challenges.
“So, you know, if we lose in court … we’re bound by it,” Graham told reporters after the lunch Wednesday. “You don’t need to use the Impoundment Control Act. You have rescission and reconciliation. … Take these two tools and use them.”
Paul said Wednesday morning’s Supreme Court ruling that lifted the administration’s hold on roughly $2 billion in foreign aid spending was an indication that the administration wasn’t on solidly legal ground.
“We had a ruling this morning from the Supreme Court that seems to be pushing towards that there needs to be rescission, that they’re not going to be able to impound. I thought the court would actually let them impound it until Sept. 30, until the end of the year. They’re already saying, ‘No, it’s going back to the lower court,'” Paul said. “So my message to Elon was, let’s get over the impoundment idea. Let’s send it back as a rescission package, because then we’ll get … 51 senators, or 50 senators to cut the spending.”
The last time an all-GOP Washington tried to claw back funding with a rescissions bill was in 2018, during Trump’s first term.
That $15 billion cuts package — vastly smaller than what Paul’s talking about — barely passed the House, 210-206, with a much larger Republican majority allowing them to lose 19 votes on their side. But it couldn’t get through the 51-49 Senate, after two Republicans voted with the Democrats to block the measure on a procedural vote.
One of those Republicans is still in the Senate: current Appropriations Chair Susan Collins, R-Maine. Even that effort, which was specifically authorized under the 1974 law Congress passed, she viewed as eroding too much of lawmakers’ power over the purse.
“I see this as an institutional issue,” Collins said at the time.
This time there are 53 GOP senators, giving rescission proponents more of a cushion. But the cuts under consideration could be much larger.
Paul said Trump needs to “expend his energy” to make it happen, as opposed to in 2018 when it didn’t appear the White House’s heart was in it.
“We lost that battle. But I don’t think they tried very hard. I don’t think they came and lobbied us. I don’t think they came and talked to us,” he said.
Senators also expressed some frustration about being kept in the dark as departments and agencies fire workers.
Graham said Musk told them that “they’re going to try to create a system so members of Congress can call some central group and get that fixed quickly” when there are layoffs that are counterproductive, such as layoffs of officials who “permit fishing boats,” resulting in lost government revenue.
House GOP concerns
Later on Wednesday, Musk met with House Republicans — some of whom have been criticized over DOGE cuts at town hall meetings back in their districts — in an attempt to address concerns about the speed and scale of his cost-cutting effort.
“Most people said thank you for what you’re doing,” said Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., a member of the arch-conservative Freedom Caucus, in describing the tone of the meeting. He said Musk described his efforts to expose waste and fraud but mostly answered questions from House members.
“His message to us was, you all do what you want to with it. I’m going to uncover it,” Norman said, referring to cases of fraud.
But another GOP member, who requested anonymity to speak candidly, said concerns still remain about how Musk’s organization is implementing cuts, even if they decline to say so publicly.
“Republican members may be reticent to criticize Elon publicly because they understand that you praise in public and … you criticize behind closed doors,” the member said.
Paul M. Krawzak contributed to this report.
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