Trump’s Funding Feuds With Congress Add Strain to Shutdown Fight

Months of feuding between the White House and Congress over federal employee layoffs and withholding agency funds is sowing distrust and making it harder for lawmakers to avoid a shutdown this week.

There’s an underlying bitterness between congressional Democrats and President Donald Trump’s budget director, Russell Vought, that’s contributed to the current showdown.

Vought’s unilateral approach — including his impoundment of funds approved by Congress, his legally contested use of a “pocket rescission” to claw back money, and his recent threat to lay off federal workers during a shutdown, all at Trump’s behest — has become a prominent part of the funding standoff.

The fight over executive authority will make any compromise even more difficult. After months of watching Trump and Vought assert the authority to ignore funding laws and, at times, enact only the elements of legislation they favor, Democrats question how they can trust that any deal would be honored in full.

Those tensions have also created a messaging challenge for Democrats who so far have mostly been warning about the dangers of not extending health-care subsidies if there is a shutdown. The party has struggled to clearly address the more abstract issue of the president’s use of unilateral powers, and Congress’ authority over spending, one of its most significant levers of power.

The lack of faith in Trump’s OMB to spend money is a departure from previous shutdown fights, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) told reporters.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said this shutdown differs from those in the past because of the administration’s willingness to ignore spending agreements.

Photographer: Angus Mordant/Bloomberg

“We’re in a much different situation because when you do the appropriations bills, they just undo them on their own,” Schumer said of working with the current White House.

Democrats included a series of provisions in a stopgap funding proposal that would have reined in the powers of OMB, including measures to provide dollars for programs that faced clawbacks earlier this year and permanently ban fast-tracked, partisan rescission proposals. That continuing resolution failed in a Senate vote last week.

BGOV Bill Analysis: S. 2882, Democratic Stopgap to Oct. 31

‘This Is a Debate on Health Care’

Still, the focus on Vought’s unilateral actions, and the separation of powers, may have to fall by the wayside in favor of their health care demands, said Neera Tanden, president and CEO of the left-leaning Center for American Progress and a former adviser to then-President Joe Biden.

“I don’t really know that it’s that helpful to have like six preconditions going into the debate,” Tanden told Bloomberg Government.

It’s difficult to explain to voters why there’s been such a breakdown in goodwill between congressional Democrats and the Trump administration, Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-Md.), an appropriator, said. But putting the focus on health care addresses a concrete issue.

“Impoundment and rescissions — we don’t need to get lost in inside-the-beltway speak, because I think for regular people, their costs are going up,” Ivey said.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the top House Democratic appropriator, has repeatedly criticized Vought, complaining that “if you make a deal, they can abrogate it at any moment.” But she said the Sept. 30 fight is primarily about one issue.

“This is a debate on health care,” DeLauro told reporters. “It is a debate on health care and the cuts on health care, and it is about the cost of living.”

Top Democratic appropriator Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) said the shutdown fight is over health care.

(Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg)

That message could capitalize on a weakness for Trump. A September AP-NORC poll found that 64% of US adults disapproved of Trump’s performance on health care while 35% approved. And 62% of adults disapproved of his performance on the economy while 37% approved.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) linked health care and unchecked executive authority in citing a Government Accountability Office report that the Trump administration violated federal law by withholding National Institutes of Health money.

“I’m not going to write a blank check for a lawless president,” Van Hollen said. “The president has already demonstrated that he will already break the law withholding NIH funding, other funding. So you have to have something that’s worth the paper it’s written on.”

Yet for those in Congress, whose influence depends in large part on their ability to direct spending, there are fundamental issues at stake when it comes to the White House’s defiance over the federal budget.

“It is important to know, to try to figure out, what a deal actually is,” Tanden said. “If Russ Vought undoes it like 10 days afterwards, Democrats look pretty silly, right?”

And it’s an argument some congressional Republicans say they understand.

“I don’t think the Democrats want to shut down either,” Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), a senior appropriator, told Bloomberg Government. “Their concern right now, and it’s a legitimate concern, is that, how can we agree to any deal when our OMB director will just impound the funds and say we’re not going to spend them there?”