WASHINGTON, Jan 15 (Reuters) – Donald Trump’s choice to oversee the federal budget, Russell Vought, defended the U.S. president-elect’s goal of cutting spending by refusing to spend money that Congress has already authorized at a Senate confirmation hearing on Wednesday.
Vought, who also headed the Office of Management and Budget during Trump’s first term, questioned the constitutionality of a 1974 law governing how Congress can review presidential refusal to spend, a process called “impoundment.”
“For 200 years, presidents had the ability to spend less than an appropriation if they could do it for less,” Vought said about congressional funding. “As it pertains to the parameters of how we would use that, that’s something that his team will have to consider when they are confirmed.”
Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal challenged that assertion, saying, “I am astonished and aghast that someone in this responsible of position would in effect say that the president is above the law.” MORE