One does NOT question the Master of the Budget Process:
Democrats have long expressed concern about the Trump administration’s efforts to withhold congressionally appropriated funding, arguing that the White House is attempting to circumvent Congress’ power of the purse. But so far, their demands to add guardrails to funding bills to stop the administration from engaging in so-called “pocket rescissions” have gone unanswered.
One senior House Republican, though, did try to add such a provision to an appropriations bill — only for the White House to intervene and stop him, NOTUS has learned.
The Office of Management and Budget’s director, Russell Vought, is the mastermind behind the administration’s pocket rescissions strategy which involves a request from the president to withhold money already appropriated by Congress. But the request comes so late in the fiscal year that Congress doesn’t have enough time to act within the allotted timeframe. and the administration considers the money rescinded once the fiscal year ends.
[…]
But in July, Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart, vice chair of the House Appropriations Committee and one of the 12 so-called “cardinals,” quietly added a provision to the fiscal 2026 bill for the National Security, Department of State, and Related Programs Subcommittee — which funds the agencies most impacted by Trump’s two rescissions requests — that would have addressed pocket rescissions. The clause, Sec. 7065, would have given Congress an extra 45 days to consider rescissions requests submitted late in the fiscal year.
After the bill text was released, Vought reached out to Díaz-Balart, explaining that the White House was concerned about the provision, one senior White House official told NOTUS. The official said that after Vought relayed the issue, Díaz-Balart removed the provision.
The White House did more than just reach out to Díaz-Balart. Republican appropriators started receiving pressure from the White House to not support the bill if the provision remained, according to a source familiar with the matter. A second source familiar with the matter told NOTUS that some GOP appropriators contacted the White House shortly after the bill came out to let officials know that they were “working to get it out.”
Members quickly spoke to Díaz-Balart about the provision, urging him to remove it. Rep. Andy Harris, a top appropriator and chair of the House Freedom Caucus, which has continuously supported the White House’s rescissions efforts, confirmed to NOTUS that he spoke with the Florida congressman, saying “there was discussion about (the provision) and it never came to fruition.”
I have no doubt that Trump doesn’t know what rescission is. He’s busy with redecorating anyway. So Vought is running the budgetary process in the White House and has no use for the Congress. As he promised. In Project 2025.
Let’s see if the Sup[remes sign off on this.If so, it will be among the worst betrayals of the constitution we’ve ever seen. Until recently we were told that the Justices are “originalists” unwilling to acknowledge the living constitution. If they do this the constitution will effectively be dead and the founders will be screaming from their graves.