[Russell] Vought has exerted extraordinary control over government spending this year, usurping congressional decisions on how the nation’s money is used.
“The White House has shown that they are willing to unilaterally exert control over funding,” said Gillian Metzger, a constitutional law professor at Columbia University.
“This is a huge deal,” she added, “because the power of the purse is central to Congress’ ability to shape and direct policy.”
Before he was appointed to lead the White House’s Office of Management and Budget this year, Vought outlined budgetary strategies the executive branch could deploy to wrest power from Congress and federal agencies in Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s conservative blueprint.
Vought’s tactics unfolded this year, often below the radar. They include abrupt grant cancellations, extraordinary constraints on how funds can be spent, and excessive layers of review, agency officials say, at every step in the grantmaking process. Getting money out the door has been further complicated by layoffs that have gutted offices overseeing grants on chronic disease prevention, HIV, maternal mortality, and more.
“This is a sophisticated strategy to cause money to lapse and then say, ‘If they can’t spend it, they don’t need it,’” said Robert Gordon, a public policy specialist at Georgetown University and a former assistant finance secretary at HHS.
“No one thought this was possible or legal, but that is what’s happening,” he said.
An unknown amount of Congress’ 2025 funding for research and public health has yet to be awarded and will probably lapse this year, said Joe Carlile, an author of the center’s analysis and an associate OMB director during the Biden administration. The obstructions appear to be concentrated in areas where the White House proposed cutting the federal budget next year. “The administration may be executing their 2026 budget request through administrative controls,” Carlile said.
“This is boring but crazy-high stakes,” he added. “A one-branch veto of spending neuters the power of the purse in the Constitution that Madison said was the fundamental check on the executive branch.”
A key tactic Vought described in Project 2025 occurs when the OMB activates funds for agencies in installments, called apportionments. Vought wrote that “apportioned funding” could “ensure consistency with the President’s agenda.”
Under Vought, the OMB shrank the size of apportionments, HHS and CDC staffers said. It’s illegal for agencies to let grantees withdraw money before the total amount is in the metaphorical bank, so that delayed agencies’ ability to greenlight spending.
The OMB and DOGE also placed conditions on apportionments through memos, footnotes, and spoken directives…
Lambert here: “Spoken directives”?!?!?!
…. telling agencies to ensure that spending “aligns with Administration priorities,” according to reports and HHS employees who said that notices of funding opportunities and awards required excessive layers of sign-off. The CDC and other agencies circulated lists of priorities that reflect White House stances, including those targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts; immigration; and transgender rights. Public health efforts have been especially caught up in red tape, since many focus on populations bearing an unequal burden of death, disease, and injury.
Lambert here: Enter DOGE….
DOGE also inserted itself into grant reimbursements this year, stalling the rapid turnaround that public health groups typically expect to cover salaries, rent, and other monthly costs outlined in budgets that have already been approved. In what’s now labeled Departmental Efficiency Review, itemized expenses must be regularly justified by multiple government officials, according to documents reviewed by KFF Health News.
DOGE posted on its website expense reports covering about a month’s span from April to May. Nearly 230 of the individual expenses filed to federal agencies during that period are for $1 or less. Other entries break down monthly salaries for individual employees and petty costs for postage or monthly subscriptions.
“Public funds deserve scrutiny, but this is different from audit practices I’ve been a part of,” Carlile said.
DOGE also stalled calls for applications for 2025 funding — and some calls never appeared as the fiscal year came to a close on Sept. 30. Among them are programs for groups that provide housing assistance. People will be evicted when these organizations run out of money left over from 2024, said Steve Berg, chief policy officer at the National Alliance to End Homelessness.
Other solicitations came out months behind schedule, leaving groups with a few weeks to put together complicated applications for multimillion-dollar awards, including for Alzheimer’s care, addiction recovery, senior support, and chronic disease management.
“They’ve set projects up to fail,” one HHS official said.
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