WASHINGTON — New White House budget director Russ Vought has spent much of his career learning the detailed, often intricate mechanisms that make up the Office of Management and Budget.
The agency, little known outside Washington, is relatively diminutive compared to the rest of the federal government, but it acts as the nucleus of the executive branch and wields considerable power.
OMB is responsible for the annual release of the president’s budget requests, but it also manages much of the executive branch, overseeing the work of departments, reviewing the enormous majority of federal regulations, and coordinating how various agencies communicate with Congress.
Vought served as deputy director, acting director and then director of OMB during Trump’s first term.
Vought previously served as vice president of Heritage Action for America, policy director of the U.S. House of Representatives Republican Conference, executive director of the Republican Studies Committee and legislative assistant to former Texas GOP Sen. Phil Gramm. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Wheaton College and a law degree from George Washington University Law School.
After Trump’s first term, Vought founded the right-wing Center for American Renewal. The group’s mission is to “renew the consensus on America as a nation under God, with unique interests worth defending that flow from its people, institutions and history, where the exercise of individual freedom is based on just laws and healthy communities.”
Cutting government spending
Vought outlined its agenda for the next four years in Project 2025, a 922-page long document from the conservative-leaning Heritage Foundation, which led to speculation during the presidential campaign about what Trump would want to do without Congress, including in areas that constitutionally fall within the purview of the legislature, such as government spending.
Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris has repeatedly tried to link Project 2025 to Trump and his campaign, and they have sought to distance themselves from his proposal. However, Trump has since nominated some authors or contributors to lead federal departments and agencies.
Vought, in a 26-page chapter on the president’s executive office, wrote that the OMB director “must ensure the appointment of a general counsel who is respected, yet creative and fearless in his ability to challenge legal precedents designed to protect the status quo.”
Trump, Vought and many others are sanguine about government spending cuts, but they will likely face legal challenges if they try to spend more or much less than lawmakers approve in more than a dozen annual government funding bills.
Budget request
Vought’s most apparent duties will be publishing the president’s annual budget request, a lengthy document that outlines the commander-in-chief’s proposal for the federal government’s tax and spending policies.
The president’s budget, however, is only a request because Congress has the constitutional authority to set tax and spending policy.
Lawmakers on Capitol Hill write more than a dozen annual government funding bills, which account for about one-third of annual federal spending. The rest of the federal government’s spending comes from Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, which are classified as mandatory programs and largely operate on autopilot unless Congress approves changes and the president signs a new law.
This separation of powers caused frustration during Trump’s first term and will likely do so again, as during the 2024 campaign he talked about using “confiscation” to prevent the federal government from spending money approved by Congress.
Trump withheld security funding to Ukraine during his first term, leading to one of two impeachments and a ruling by the Government Accountability Office – a nonpartisan government watchdog – that he violated the law.
“Faithfully Executing the Law Prevents the President from Substituting His Own Policy Priorities for Those Enacted by Congress,” GAO he wrote. “OMB withheld funds for political reasons, which is not permitted under the Impoundment Control Act (ICA). The suspension of payments was not a program delay. We therefore conclude that OMB has violated the provisions of the ICA.”
During the campaign, Trump talked about using “confiscation” to drastically reduce government spending, but that would likely lead to lawsuits and a Supreme Court ruling.
Vought Advisory Team, American Renewal Center, analysis published presidents have used confiscation throughout the country’s history, and the authors concluded that the Confiscation Control Act is unconstitutional.
“Every Tool Possible”
Vought sought to defend the president’s budget request in his chapter of Project 2025, writing that while “some mistakenly view it as mere paper-pushing, the president’s budget is in fact a powerful mechanism for setting and enforcing public policy across federal agencies.” “
He signaled that a second Trump administration would be more nuanced in its interpretation of presidential power.
“The president should use every tool possible to propose and impose fiscal discipline on the federal government.” Vought wrote. “Anything less than that would be total failure.”
Vought also wrote about the portfolio management aspect of OMB, insisting that political appointees should have more power and influence than professional staff.
“It is important that the director and his political staff, not careerists, lead these offices in pursuit of the president’s real priorities and not allow them to set their own agenda based on the wishes of the vast ‘good government’ management community at home and abroad.” – Vought wrote. “Many executives fail to properly prioritize the management portfolio, leaving it to the deputy director of management, but such neglect creates pointless bureaucracy that impedes the president’s agenda of the M train to nowhere.”
Last updated at 15:12, November 26, 2024
