Trump Rescues Federal Spending From Congress

President Donald Trump rescued $810 million from the dangerous custody of federal law Friday, canceling money Congress had approved for health research, education, housing counseling, refugee services and other radical experiments involving public services. The White House used a disputed maneuver known as a pocket rescission, submitting the cancellations shortly before the Sept. 30 fiscal-year deadline so the funds could expire while Congress was still exercising its ceremonial right to object. Constitutional experts described the process as circumventing lawmakers, while administration officials called it fiscal discipline through strategic clock management.

Roughly $567 million had been designated for refugee and resettlement programs, where it risked being spent on refugees and resettlement. Another $70 million threatened to support international education, potentially exposing Americans to foreign languages, maps and the destabilizing concept that other countries exist. An additional $28 million had been set aside for Health and Human Services research, an evidence-producing activity long viewed with suspicion by policymakers who already know the preferred result. “Congress approved it, but then I unapproved it, which is actually more constitutional because I did it very strongly. Nobody has ever protected the power of the purse better than me by taking the purse away,” Trump said.

Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins, a Republican, called the maneuver unlawful and said the administration had deliberately withheld the funds for months. Officials congratulated Collins for locating Congress’s spending authority, a constitutional Easter egg concealed in the opening article of the nation’s founding document. Speaker Mike Johnson is now expected to streamline future appropriations by sending the White House a laminated menu of federal programs, allowing Trump to cross out any item that funds research, foreigners or insufficient gratitude. The canceled money will instead remain safely unspent, where it can provide no housing, education, health findings or other measurable opportunities for criticism. The Constitution now plainly establishes that Congress controls federal spending only until the president waits long enough.

* None of the quotes in this article were spoken by an actual person. More info.