Trump’s pick for OMB chief defends stripping civil service protections and withholding appropriated funds

President-elect Trump’s pick to lead the White House budget told lawmakers Wednesday he may consider withholding funds allocated by Congress and defended stripping civil service protections for some employees as necessary to guarantee good governance.

Russ Vought, director-designate of the Office of Management and Budget, drew criticism from both sides of the aisle for his refusal to confirm that he would follow congressional spending laws when distributing funds to agencies, noting that Trump has called existing restrictions unconstitutional and that he would follow the president’s directives. guidelines. Vought, who took an often confrontational approach to the federal civil service, suggested once again that bureaucracy had been weaponized and that reforms were needed to undo this reality.

Vought served as deputy director of the OMB from the start of the first Trump administration, then took over as acting director of the OMB in January 2019. He was confirmed by the Senate to the position in July 2020. During During his tenure, Vought repeatedly submitted budgets that would have gutted the OMB budget. non-defense agencies and led efforts to remove civil service protections for much of the federal workforce.

Vought got broad support from Republicans on the committee and great concern from Democrats in equal measure. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said at the top of the hearing that he supported Vought’s nomination and believed he, along with the nongovernmental Department of Government Effectiveness led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, would reduce federal spending. expenses.

“Mr. Vought has always been an advocate for fiscal health and has continually suggested strategies to reduce excessive spending,” Paul said.

The former White House official played a key role in implementing Trump’s deregulatory agenda, including removing the ability of agencies to issue guidance without going through the formal rulemaking process. Vought also sparked controversy when it oversaw the longest shutdown in U.S. history and took unprecedented steps to keep agencies operating despite expiring appropriations, an approach that was later rebuked by the Government Accountability Office. Toward the end of his tenure, Vought helped implement a Trump order to rid much of the federal government of diversity and inclusion efforts and threatened to discipline employees who participated in them.

Since leaving office, Vought has helped found the Center for Renewing America and has consistently denounced what he sees as the outsized role of federal officials in implementing the law. He deplored federal officials who dragged their feet in implementing Trump administration policies during the former president’s first term and argued for increased accountability to prevent this from happening. reproduce. He frequently refers to federal workers as a “regime” and an “administrative state” and suggests they hold too much power.

Vought has been the leading advocate for the president taking office in 2025, immediately reinstating Trump’s controversial Annex F initiative.

The director-designate attempted to help implement Trump’s late 2020 executive order, which removed merit-based civil service protections for large swaths of the federal workforce. The order was written to apply to any federal employee in a policy-making position, although Vought interpreted that language broadly.

With time running out before Schedule F could take effect and President Biden immediately revoking it upon taking office, Vought sought to designate 88% of the OMB as Schedule F and eligible for termination at will for political reasons. In an interview with Tucker Carlson just before Trump announced his selection, Vought said he did this in part to set a tone for the rest of the agency heads that “this should be given maximum consideration.” He added that it was his understanding that Annex F would be “a day one thing”.

At his hearing Wednesday, Vought said he thought Annex F was good policy, but suggested his conversations with Trump were private so he couldn’t reveal whether they discussed restoring it . He nevertheless defends its necessity.

“It’s about ensuring that the president, who has the responsibility to set policy, has people who are also confidential, and that policy positions respond to his views and his agenda,” Vought said. “And it works on the same basis that most Americans work on, which is that they have to do a good job or they may not stay in these positions much longer.”

He added that after widely implementing the policy at OMB, he has not encountered anyone who should be terminated using Annex F authority.

In his interview with Carlson, Vought said that in a second Trump term, “there will definitely be massive layoffs, particularly at some agencies that we don’t think should even exist.” Vought distanced itself from those comments when Sen. Andy Kim, D-N.J., asked about them.

“I’m not here to elaborate on any plans for that because I’m not sure they exist,” Vought said.

He added that there are “armed bureaucracies within the federal government,” but that “doesn’t mean there aren’t extraordinary career civil servants.”

Vought also said OMB would work with Musk and Ramaswamy’s team to ensure federal employees report to their offices more frequently.

“I think we’re going to make it a priority,” Vought said, adding that his team would “determine where we are on a day-to-day basis and then determine what can be done about it.” He added that it is a “concerning phenomenon” that some agencies in recent months have signed collective bargaining agreements with federal employee unions protecting telework and have committed to carefully reviewing those contracts.

Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., the panel’s top Democrat, said Vought’s experience at OMB disqualified him for the job.

“Unfortunately, your record and actions in these roles raise serious concerns about how you will lead this critical agency that touches literally every sector of the federal government,” Peters said.

Peters focused on Trump’s promise to avoid any attempts to block his agenda, in part by fighting to repeal the 1974 Impoundment Control Act. This law prohibits the executive branch from withholding funds allocated by Congress for political reasons. In 2019, the Government Accountability Office found that OMB had repeatedly violated the law by spending without appropriations during a shutdown earlier that year and in 2020 it found that it had again violated the law by withholding aid to Ukraine. This latter event led, in part, to Trump’s first impeachment.

Vought denied ever violating the law during his first term at OMB and said Trump was elected with the public knowing his position by keeping the door open to further seizure of funds.

“We will develop our approach to this issue and our strategy once his administration is in office,” Vought said.

Peters called the response “very concerning” and said Trump’s election “does not change the Constitution.” Paul also took issue with Vought’s response, although he suggested that OMB retained some wiggle room in transfer and reprogramming authority.

“I think if we appropriate something for a cause, that’s where it’s supposed to go, and that’s always going to be my position,” Paul said.

After calls from Sen. Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, and Elissa Slotkin, Democrat of Michigan, and others to commit to allocating funds allocated by Congress to programs such as aid Ukraine, veterans’ benefits and Great Lakes restoration, Vought refused to do so. he therefore declared that he was not going to get ahead of “the political process”. Blumenthal called the responses “disqualifying,” which drew approval from several Democratic members of the committee.

Vought also made clear that he hoped to once again present budgets that cut agency spending and federal staff numbers, as the Trump administration proposed throughout the president-elect’s first term.

“Obviously, one of the things that our previous budgets have really gone after is non-defense discretionary spending, which just happens to be where the bureaucracy is funded on an annual basis,” Vought said, “which gives member senators the annual capacity to collect some of this waste.

Vought pledged to carry out Trump’s deregulatory agenda, noting that he will consider his term successful if, in the end, agencies eliminate regulations rather than “placing endless burdens on the American people “.