Sky York Journal
In recent weeks, as the Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought has floated novel ways to steamroll Congress, Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) has been making some noise. When Vought reportedly floated a plan to subject NIH grants to review by a committee of political appointees who would ensure they were not “woke,” Collins warned that the White House would be violating the law. Then, on Sep. 25, shortly after the Trump White House sent Congress their illegal pocket rescission notification — a plan to impound congressionally appropriated funds by letting the clock run out on the fiscal year — Collins took to social media and posted a scathing statement.
“Without warning or consultation, Congress just received an $810 million package of pocket rescissions from the Administration. This is the most recent attempt by this Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to undermine Congress’s Constitutional power of the purse,” Collins said.
In a perfect world, it may not be surprising to see the Senate Appropriations Committee Chair staunchly pushing back on a move that tramples over Congress’ power of the purse.
It is, in the end — as Charlie Ellsworth, adviser to Public Citizen and former budget and appropriations staffer for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, put it to TPM — “the foremost power of Congress.”
“People who study appropriations law say that there’s actually no greater power than Congress’s power of the purse. It’s actually the foremost power of Congress,” Ellsworth told TPM. “And the administration is taking that head on, trying to expand its reach so that they can choose what gets spent regardless of appropriations law.”
But in Feb. 2025, Collins did make the choice to vote to confirm Vought to be the OMB director after he had established himself as an advocate of expansive executive branch power — in part by pushing the false claim that the president has the constitutional authority to impound funds appropriated by Congress.
And, despite her recent statements, she has, over the past year and a half — through the Trump administration’s countless illegal impoundments, funding freezes and pocket rescissions — done little to actually rein the executive branch in.
Shortly after Collins shared her statement, her opponents in November’s election, Democrat Troy Jackson, took advantage of the moment, calling out Collins for being surprised at Trump and OMB’s not-so-secret plan to impound congressionally approved funds.
“Susan Collins voted for Trump’s pick to lead the OMB. Now she’s surprised he’s doing exactly what he promised to do?” Jackson said in a social media post.
“Expressing concern isn’t enough,” he added. “Mainers see through the bullshit.”
TPM asked Collins’ office if the senator has had second thoughts about confirming Vought; the office referred the question to the Senate Appropriations Committee, which did not directly answer, referring TPM to Collins’ initial statement on the latest pocket rescissions.
The reality is, Vought never kept secret his plans to undermine Congress, its power of the purse and related laws.
Before he was even confirmed for the job, Vought was musing about his desire to cut funding to programs and departments Trump and MAGA world did not like.
“We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected…,” Vought said in a 2023 video uncovered by ProPublica. “We want their funding to be shut down so that the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] can’t do all of the rules against our energy industry, because they have no bandwidth financially to do so.”
Vought’s thoughts around this and plans for the future were not only articulated in private meetings. Just take a look at his Senate confirmation hearings.
When asked during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee in Jan. 2025, Vought made his position clear on impoundments.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) asked Vought during the hearing if he believes the Impoundment Control Act (ICA) is constitutional, to which he responded: “No, I don’t believe it’s constitutional. The president ran on that view. That’s his view and I agree.”
In the same hearing, committee’s Ranking Member Garry Peters (D-MI) also asked Vought about previous actions under the Trump administration to freeze congressionally appropriated funds, following it up with if he thought it was “within the law” for the White House to do that.
Once again, consistent with his actions and previous comments, Vought argued he did not believe funds were “inappropriately” withheld.
That is, of course, contrary to what the Government Accountability Office (GAO), a nonpartisan legislative branch agency tasked with deciding if the president is impounding funds in violation of the ICA, found. In a 2020 report, the GOA said that the Trump administration violated the ICA when its OMB withheld military assistance to Ukraine the prior year.
At the time, Collins decided that she would support Vought’s nomination and vote to confirm him.
And after Vought’s confirmation, under his direction OMB and the Trump White House escalated their assault on Congress’ power of the purse.
Since last year, the Trump administration was found to have repeatedly impounded federal funds approved by Congress, as documented in several decisions from the GAO. The Trump White House also found other ways to undo appropriators’ decisions, pushing congressional Republicans to authorize a rescissions package in 2025 and championing, now, two pockets rescissions packages, which the GAO also found to be outside of the law.
“Susan Collins has utterly failed to use the power she campaigned on as appropriations chair to stand up the Trump administration — and she voted for Trump’s budget nominees even after they made it clear they planned to illegally slash funding for programs that Mainers relied on,” Misha Linnehan, spokesperson for the Maine Democratic Party, told TPM on Monday.
Asked if Collins had any regrets, the Senate Appropriations Committee spokesperson noted that 11 out of the 12 appropriations bills were signed into law in a bipartisan way last year under Collins’ leadership and that she blocked the OMB grant rule in the current continuing resolution.
TPM has previously reported on OMB’s efforts to make changes to grantmaking through a proposed rule that seeks to modify how grant award decisions are made, allowing them to be made by political appointees and based on political calculations.
The current CR did stop, for now, the Trump White House and OMB from finalizing a grantmaking rule change it proposed earlier this year. But the rule change is temporary; it can be put back on track once the CR expires.
