“There has never been someone at OMB who is as familiar with the interoperation of the federal budget as Russ,” continued Erickson, saying Vought would go through the federal budget on his own time as a young, up-and-coming congressional staffer. “It literally was bedtime reading for him. He knows where the appropriations are, he knows how to roll back the appropriations, he knows how to stop them.”
Amid a government funding standoff in Congress, Vought flexed that muscle by issuing a memo Wednesday telling federal agencies to prepare for mass layoffs in the event of a shutdown, which will occur if Congress doesn’t act by Sept 30. The memo, first obtained by Politico, repeatedly bashed Democrats and blamed them for the situation, calling their requests to roll back Republicans’ spending and Medicaid cuts “insane.”
The threat, and earlier mass layoffs of federal workers, are in line with comments Vought made in a series of private speeches that were uncovered by ProPublica in 2024. In them, Vought called for putting federal workers “in trauma” to the point they don’t want to go to work and to “shut down” funding so regulation would cease.
Democrats have so far balked at voting for Republicans’ plan to extend government funding until Nov. 21, demanding the sides negotiate spending levels that include Democratic priorities. They in part blame Vought’s efforts to expand the president’s authority over spending, which Democrats say is illegal, for poisoning any discussions.
Vought and his allies argue that the president can choose to spend less than what Congress appropriates, and that a 1974 law that restricts the administration’s ability to impound federal funds is unconstitutional. The issue is already before the courts.
Even before Trump took office, Vought was preparing to push the envelope of presidential authority over government funding. After serving as OMB director at the end of the first Trump administration, he founded a right-wing think tank that blends Christian ideology with conservative priorities, including shrinking government.
While there, Vought helped craft Project 2025, the road map for the Trump administration written by a group of conservative thinkers. In the chapter he authored, Vought wrote that the key to supercharging presidential authority is an empowered Office of Management and Budget that functions as a nerve center for the executive branch to carry out the president’s vision.
“The President should use every possible tool to propose and impose fiscal discipline on the federal government,” Vought wrote. “Anything short of that would constitute abject failure.”
Those plans seem to be playing out, both in plain view and behind the scenes.
In August, the administration gave political appointees far more authority over how funds are spent, issuing an executive order requiring they or their designees oversee all grant awards to ensure they match administration priorities.
Throughout the year, federal dollars were delayed for “review,” days before payment was due, prompting at times widespread concern and pushback from lawmakers, as was the case for more than $6 billion of education funds.
Recipients of federal funds from multiple agencies have described unprecedented levels of uncertainty and new procedures to access money that previously was routinely doled out. And they say dramatic reductions in federal staff have slowed grant-making.
Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee keep a spreadsheet of funding they say has been canceled or frozen, which currently totals more than $400 billion, though it is unclear how much of that was at Vought’s direction.
Democrats have argued Vought’s actions are illegal and cited his actions as grounds for demanding that Republicans negotiate.
“The puppet master of all of this is Russ Vought, an unelected bureaucrat who has been aggrandizing power to himself,” said Connecticut Representative Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee. “I think he’s a very dangerous person, in addition to which, he is unlawfully stealing — it’s not impounding, it’s stealing — congressionally appropriated funds.”
Some Republicans are supportive of Vought and argue that the Biden administration undertook similar power grabs on federal spending, such as forgiving student loans and repurposing money intended for a border wall to military projects. Most of them voted for rollbacks in funding for foreign aid and public broadcasting that Vought requested in July.
But Vought also faces gentle criticism from Republicans who are frustrated with withheld funding that was approved by Congress. On Thursday, Maine Senator Susan Collins, who chairs the Senate Appropriation Committee, joined with Democratic Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey to demand Vought and Secretary of State Marco Rubio release funds passed by Congress for international exchange programs.
Representative Steve Womack of Arkansas, a longtime member of the House Appropriations Committee, noted the Constitution grants spending power to Congress, so the White House should discuss disagreements with lawmakers and not simply override them.
“Frankly, I think that OMB should pay more attention to what the Congress of the United States through its Article I authority is actually proposing,” Womack said. “The legislative branch makes these laws, and the Constitution is pretty clear that the executive branch carries them out.”
Another member of the appropriations committees, South Dakota Senator Mike Rounds, said he‘s been largely OK with the administration’s cuts, but “if we get this new appropriations process [going], you’ll find strong Republican support for getting the items that are appropriated executed on.”
For now, Democrats are shrugging off Vought’s firings threat. But if funding talks remain at an impasse and the government shuts down come Wednesday, he would have broad leeway to decide what parts continue to operate and which close, and layoffs could indeed be part of that.
“If I were a Democrat, the thought of empowering the head of the Office of Management and Budget in a Republican shutdown would give me pause,” said Erickson, the conservative talk show host. “If I were a Democrat and Russ Vought was in charge of OMB, I would have nightmares about what Russ could do that you couldn’t undo when government reopens. Russ has waited for this moment his whole life.”
Tal Kopan can be reached at tal.kopan@globe.com. Follow her @talkopan.