ATLANTA — A recent directive from the White House aiming to suspend federal grants demonstrates a perspective on presidential authority that was strongly supported by Donald Trump during his campaign for the 2024 election. This strategy was further elaborated in the Project 2025 governing framework, which Trump vehemently denied was intended as a plan for his potential second term.
The memo issued on Monday evening by Matthew Vaeth, the acting director of the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), supposedly seeks to align federal spending with Trump’s executive actions. This includes contentious areas such as LGBTQ+ rights, civil rights, energy, and environmental policies.
Vaeth’s memo employed sharply ideological language, stating, “The use of Federal resources to advance Marxist equity, transgenderism, and green new deal social engineering policies is a waste of taxpayer dollars that does not improve the day-to-day lives of those we serve.”
This order, which faced a temporary halt by a federal judge the next day, could potentially influence a wider range of policy matters than those Vaeth has expressly referenced. Moreover, it hints at how Trump might intend to exercise executive power throughout his anticipated presidency.
The OMB is regarded as a pivotal hub of authority within the federal government. Prior to Vaeth’s memo, the president and his conservative allies had established that they view the OMB as central to exerting influence across the government spectrum.
Functioning as part of the Executive Office of the President, OMB personnel are responsible for preparing the president’s budget proposals to Congress and overseeing the execution of the president’s initiatives throughout all Executive Branch agencies. While Congress holds the power to approve spending, it is the executive agencies that implement federal programs and services. This dual role positions the OMB at critical junctions of government strategy.
Key contributors to Project 2025, including Russell Vought, who has been nominated as Trump’s OMB chief, emphasized this role’s significance. Vought, who is pending Senate confirmation, articulated a desire for the OMB to have enhanced influence. He stated, “The Director must view his job as the best, most comprehensive approximation of the President’s mind.” He described the OMB as “a President’s air-traffic control system” that should be involved in every aspect of the White House’s policy-making process, aiming for it to be robust enough to counteract the bureaucracies of implementing agencies.
In other sections of the Project 2025 framework, authors advocated for all presidential appointees to take charge of “unaccountable federal spending” and create a pathway from the West Wing to rein in what Trump frequently labels “the Deep State” comprising government civil servants.
They stated, “The Administrative State is not going anywhere until Congress acts to retrieve its power from bureaucrats and the White House. In the meantime, there are numerous executive tools available to a determined conservative president to restrain the bureaucracy (and) bring the Administrative State to its knees.”
Trump has positioned himself as the ultimate decision-maker regarding government spending. His campaign has often gone beyond Project 2025 in affirming presidential authority over federal finances. Through his Agenda 47, Trump expressed support for the concept of “impoundment,” a legal theory suggesting that when lawmakers approve appropriations, they establish a spending ceiling rather than a requirement to spend. According to this view, the president can opt not to allocate funds for anything deemed unnecessary, as Article II of the Constitution designates the president as responsible for enforcing laws passed by Congress.
This theory faced rejection from Congress during Richard Nixon’s administration. However, Trump’s inner circle wants to contest its validity, potentially igniting a constitutional dispute that could require scrutiny from the Supreme Court.
While Vought did not delve into the concept of impoundment in his Project 2025 contribution, he emphasized that the president “should employ every possible means to propose and implement fiscal discipline on the federal government. Anything less would represent monumental failure.”
With the recent memo, the president’s strategy for imposing rapid spending reductions has now come into sharper focus. Elon Musk, who is at the helm of Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency, has noted that he could identify federal spending cuts totaling trillions, even as Trump maintains commitments to safeguard Social Security and Medicare. This pledge was reflected in the memo that temporarily paused federal grants.
The combination of OMB’s memo, Trump’s impoundment theory, and his attempts to revoke civil service protections for thousands of federal employees suggest a consolidation of power within the West Wing, potentially shaping the nature of Trump’s second term and Musk’s role in it.
For instance, Trump cannot independently revoke laws such as the Clean Air Act or the Clean Water Act. However, the OMB could effectively restrict funding necessary to enforce those regulations, following Trump’s implementation of a broad federal hiring freeze.
Likewise, Trump would not need to persuade Congress to modify Medicaid laws and funding if the White House intervenes to adjust or halt Medicaid payments to state governments responsible for administering the programs directly.
