STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
In action after action this year, President Trump's administration has shifted two big things, what the government does and who gets to decide, the president or Congress. NPR senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith has been asking about the big picture on this. Hi there, Tam.
TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: Hello.
INSKEEP: Does the White House have some kind of unifying theory on federal spending behind a lot of its actions this year?
KEITH: You know, it's about much more than just cutting spending. President Trump and those around him are testing the limits of executive power, and this is one of those places. So they obviously teach in civics class that Congress is supposed to decide how much the federal government spends and on what, the power of the purse. But the head of President Trump's budget office sees it a bit differently. Russell Vought spoke recently at a breakfast I attended that was put on by the Christian Science Monitor. And he said, sure, the power of the purse is a core constitutional power for Congress. But he doesn't see the spending bills they pass as prescriptive.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
RUSSELL VOUGHT: It's a ceiling. It is not a floor. It is not the notion that you have to spend every last dollar of that.
KEITH: And that has translated to programs, and in some cases entire government agencies, that don't fit with Trump's ideology having their funding put on hold or cut entirely, like education funds being held back. USAID was shut down. And most recently, the president just signed a rescission package he had demanded that Congress pass, about $9 billion. Anyone voting against it would not get an endorsement, he said. It clawed back money for public broadcasting and international aid. And these were all variations of this approach.
INSKEEP: Interesting listening to the budget director, Vought, because the Constitution says the president shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed. It sounds a little like Vought's theory is that the president has the option to execute the laws, at least when it comes to spending.
KEITH: And he thinks some of the laws are unconstitutional. He is the primary architect of this strategy. He's had a long career in Washington. Most prominently, he was one of the coauthors of Project 2025, and his plans have become a blueprint for this administration. In many ways, he's advancing longstanding policy ideas that have been percolating in right-wing circles for decades.
And this vision goes beyond just clawing back money that Congress has approved. He told us at the same breakfast that he thinks appropriations, the process of approving spending in Congress, needs to be less bipartisan than it already is. And that ruffled people from both parties, particularly in the Senate. Spending bills need 60 votes in the Senate, a supermajority. That means they have to be bipartisan and negotiated.
INSKEEP: Oh, and that's the way they worked around this with this rescission vote the other day with funding for public broadcasting and foreign aid. They used a process where a bare partisan majority could claw back that spending.
KEITH: Yes. But I will point out that this is a power that Congress gave itself back in the 1970s, when they were trying to rein in the imperial presidency of Richard Nixon. It's called the Impoundment Control Act, and it gives the president the option of asking Congress to claw back funds. But Congress has to approve it. That said, it is filibuster-proof. It only requires 50 votes.
So what you have here and could have more in the future is bipartisan spending bills carefully negotiated, and then the president comes back and says, oh, I don't like that. And then a partisan majority then undoes part of those spending bills. So that potentially creates a trust problem, right? Because, like, why would anyone vote for a carefully negotiated bipartisan deal if they know it could just be undone, either because the president just ignores it or because they try to push forward a rescission?
INSKEEP: NPR senior White house correspondent Tamara Keith. Thanks so much.
KEITH: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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