[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 24 (Wednesday, February 5, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S761-S763]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                      Nomination of Russell Vought

  Mr. REED. Mr. President, I rise today with grave concerns about the 
nomination of Russell Vought to be the Director of the Office of 
Management and Budget, or as it is more popularly known, OMB.
  If confirmed, this would be Mr. Vought's second time in this role, 
and based on his past performance and his radical views, I believe it 
would be reckless to confirm his nomination.
  Most Americans will be unfamiliar with OMB and the work that it does, 
but OMB touches every major government policy and every cent of Federal 
spending. OMB sits at the center of the budget process, overseeing 
everything from the initial development of Agency budget requests all 
the way through executing funding appropriated by Congress.
  OMB also plays a critical role in the regulatory review process. It 
ensures that Agencies' reports, rules, and testimony are consistent 
with administrative policies.
  All of that is to say that every regulation and every investment in 
the American people--our infrastructure, domestic manufacturing, small 
businesses, healthcare systems--you name it--goes through OMB. That 
role as a central clearinghouse of all executive branch spending and 
regulation comes with significant authority and requires a high level 
of trust, as well as fidelity to the Constitution and to the law.
  Unfortunately, the Trump administration's OMB has already broken that 
trust with Congress and the American people and the Constitution.
  While not yet confirmed as OMB Director, Mr. Vought's influence over 
the Agency can be felt even now because, in part, he played a central 
role in developing the Trump administration's policy agenda in Project 
2025 and also because of the way he ran the Agency as Director and 
Deputy Director during the first Trump administration.
  As Senator Peters, the ranking member of the Senate Homeland Security 
and Governmental Affairs Committee, pointed out during Mr. Vought's 
confirmation hearing, there are numerous examples of OMB flouting the 
law during Mr. Vought's previous tenure.
  The nonpartisan Government Accountability Office found that OMB broke 
the law eight times under Mr. Vought's leadership by directing certain 
Federal Agencies to continue to operate during the 2018-2019 shutdown.
  GAO also found that under his leadership, OMB violated the law by 
withholding vital security assistance to Ukraine that Congress 
explicitly provided, putting our national security at risk.
  The Trump-appointed inspector general for the Department of Housing 
and Urban Development found that OMB, under Mr. Vought's leadership, 
inappropriately delayed disaster relief funding for Puerto Rico 
following the devastation of Hurricane Maria.
  With the level of natural disasters that are unfolding, no Senator--
Republican or Democrat--should empower someone who delays and denies 
disaster relief.
  This record is troubling, and it has set the stage for the actions 
taken by the Trump administration in its first few days in office.
  Last week, the Acting OMB Director issued a memorandum instructing 
Federal Agencies to freeze funding that had been authorized and 
appropriated by Congress until it could be determined that the programs 
aligned with Donald Trump's ideological views--views espoused in 
Project 2025--again, a manifesto that Mr. Vought helped write.
  That means that President Trump's OMB, just days into a new 
administration, has wasted no time in usurping Congress's congressional 
authority over government spending by withholding funding previously 
approved by Congress on a bipartisan basis. This illegal action, 
initiated through OMB, demonstrates just how important and powerful the 
OMB Director position is.
  With Mr. Vought at the helm, everyone should fear that OMB will 
zealously pursue a radical agenda that includes withholding funding 
from Americans based on their religion, their thoughts, their 
appearance, or political affiliation.
  In evaluating Federal spending for ideological purity under the 
Federal funding freeze, the Trump administration cast a wide net, 
scrutinizing funds for grants for law enforcement, veterans care, 
disaster relief and mitigation, and even the 988 suicide prevention 
lifeline that has proven to be extremely effective in dealing with the 
epidemic of suicide we have seen in the nation over the last few years.
  Even for a time, Medicaid funding was held up. And that funding is 
not just for low-income Americans. It is one of the major sources of 
funding for nursing homes throughout the country that are taking care 
of the parents of working men and women all over this country. To shut 
those funds off means literally to push those people out of those 
homes.

[[Page S762]]

  Even now, the administration appears to be holding funds, for 
example, to fix an interstate bridge in Rhode Island that closed due to 
a catastrophic engineering fault that was detected. It seems as if the 
administration is now concerned about woke bridges, as well as other 
woke issues.
  Even now that a Federal court issued a temporary restraining order to 
block the funding freeze, I continue to hear from Rhode Island agencies 
and organizations that are struggling to access Federal funds that have 
already been awarded, with no answers from the administration on what 
the problem is and how they plan to fix it.
  I fear that this funding freeze is emblematic of this administration 
more broadly, putting out directives with little to no thought or 
coordination, without anticipating, and more importantly, without 
caring about the negative impacts that reckless orders like this could 
have for the American people and American businesses.
  It is important to emphasize that the Trump OMB does not have the 
authority to freeze funding.
  Back in 1974, Congress passed the Impoundment Control Act, which 
effectively makes it illegal for the President to ignore the law and 
not spend funds which Congress has appropriated.
  The Constitution gives Congress the power of the purse, and the 
Impoundment Control Act is an important tool in retaining that 
authority by clarifying that the President has no inherent power to 
reject Congress's will when it comes to lawfully appropriated spending.
  The Impoundment Control Act has never been found unconstitutional by 
any court of law. It is the law of the land.
  Yet both the President and Mr. Vought have said that they believe the 
Impoundment Control Act to be unconstitutional. And Mr. Vought has not 
only repeatedly refused to commit to following the law but has publicly 
pushed the President to break the law and ``impound.''
  Neither the President nor his unelected OMB Director can pick and 
choose which laws they like and which ones they are going to follow. 
And neither the President nor his unelected OMB Director can pick and 
choose which components of congressionally passed funding laws they 
want to implement.
  To be clear, this isn't just a matter of policy disagreements over 
funding priorities. Democrats and Republicans have and will continue to 
have disagreements over where we should prioritize Federal funding. But 
we resolve those disagreements in Congress, in a bipartisan manner, 
working together to pass appropriations laws that benefit the country. 
It is this or any other administration's obligation to follow these 
laws.
  This is Congress's constitutional role, and I would remind my 
Republican colleagues that we should not--we must not--cede our 
obligations under the Constitution to any other branch of government.
  I have been astounded, quite frankly, that so many of my Republican 
colleagues seem willing to let this administration walk all over this 
Congress on this issue.
  I have no doubt that these funding freezes are a test--a test of our 
obligation to defend the Constitution of the United States, to play our 
role in the constitutional scheme.
  Trump and his acolytes are counting on a cowed congressional majority 
and a compliant Supreme Court, stacked with Justices who are willing to 
ignore decades of precedents to sanction this lawbreaking.
  As Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy wrote in the Wall Street Journal 
last year:

       Mr. Trump has previously suggested this statute--

  The Impoundment Control Act--

     is unconstitutional, and we believe the current Supreme Court 
     would likely side with him on this question.

  I want to be very clear. I don't believe for a moment that Donald 
Trump has any idea what the Impoundment Control Act is or does. But 
rightwing activists like Mr. Vought do. They are fanning the flames in 
hopes of overturning the law so they can radically reshape the Federal 
Government to their worldview.
  And what is that worldview? Rather than serving the American people, 
they seem to want to punish Americans--punish them for holding 
different political views; punish them for being low-income; punish 
them for being sick or homeless.
  In particular, they want to further erode trust and belief in 
government, so they will make the government less efficient by pushing 
out the people who answer the call to serve the country and their 
fellow citizens as Federal employees.
  In a recent speech, Mr. Vought put it this way:

       We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected. When 
     they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go 
     to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains.

  There is a common adage here in Washington: ``Show me your budget, 
and I'll tell you what you value.''
  We haven't seen Trump's budget yet, but back in 2023, Mr. Vought 
produced a budget plan entitled ``A Commitment to End Woke and 
Weaponized Government,'' which was designed to assist House Republicans 
in their new majority. In it, Mr. Vought called for extending the Trump 
tax cuts for the richest Americans, and paying for them by cutting 
domestic funding by $3.5 trillion. For example, Medicaid would be cut 
by $2.1 trillion; food stamps by $400 billion; and eliminating the 
Affordable Care Act tax credits would also be included in this.
  I think it gives a pretty good indication of where the Trump 
administration's priorities lie, and it is certainly not with the 
average American.
  There is another reason I am troubled by Mr. Vought's nomination, and 
that is his disdain for Congress as an institution. Despite having 
drawn a number of paychecks as a congressional staffer, he has shown 
contempt for the Congress.
  As I noted earlier, when Mr. Vought served as the Acting Director of 
OMB, during the first Trump administration, he was integral to the 2019 
effort to withhold almost $400 million in military aid for Ukraine--an 
event, as my colleagues will recall, that led to Trump's first 
impeachment.
  Mr. Vought's contempt for Congress was on full display when he defied 
a congressional subpoena to produce documents and to testify in the 
impeachment inquiry. He even went as far as to turn to Twitter to 
publicly call the House of Representatives' inquiry a ``sham process'' 
and to say that he had no intent to comply with the subpoena.
  Mr. Vought has also refused to cooperate with inspector generals and 
has advocated that the President exercise emergency powers to 
circumvent congressional decisions.
  This is not an individual this Congress, or any Congress, should put 
its faith in. He has shown us who he is and how he views this 
institution and our Constitution, and as such, we should not confirm 
his nomination.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Husted). The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, starting yesterday afternoon, through the 
night, and now on into the afternoon here, my colleagues continue to 
make an extremely strong and powerful case against Mr. Vought becoming 
the head of OMB.
  As I have said before, you couldn't have a person with a worse 
ideology in the most powerful position in the government, and the 
damage he will do to the American people is enormous. We will see it 
week to week and month to month if, God forbid, he gets confirmed.
  I would make a plea to my Republican colleagues: You know that this 
man's views are so hard-right that even most of you don't agree with 
him. Yet to go along and vote for him because of pressure from the 
White House or somewhere else would just be misserving your 
constituency, whether they be liberal, conservative, rural, urban, 
suburban, red, or blue.
  This man is a slasher. He has shown no respect for people and their 
needs. His goal is simply to cut everything--almost without regard to 
how important these programs are--so that he can cut taxes on very 
wealthy people.

[[Page S763]]

To put him in such a powerful position as OMB, to put the man who was 
the architect of Project 2025 as head of OMB, to put the man who has 
one of the worst ideologies in the worst position is just a real 
dereliction to what America needs and America believes in.
  I strongly urge my colleagues to reconsider and vote no.
  I am proud that every Democrat will vote against this awful, awful 
choice.
  Mr. President, now, I yield 5 minutes of my postcloture debate time 
to Senator Warner.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has that right.
  The Senator from Delaware.