Ten former top budget and appropriations aides from both sides of the aisle wrote to congressional leaders Tuesday making impassioned arguments against the Trump administration’s use of a novel method of unilaterally canceling federal spending.
The letter warns that the attempt by Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought to cut spending without congressional approval “threatens to fracture the centuries-old process of careful compromises that underlies the passage of laws making appropriations and, consequently, heightens the risk of a government shutdown.”
Signatories include seven Republican ex-staffers and three former top Democratic aides, several of whom served during the formative years of the 1974 law laying out the modern budget process and restricting presidential impoundment of enacted appropriations.
