Trump Moves to Cancel $810 Million in Approved Spending as Fiscal Year Runs Out

President Trump has told Congress he intends to cancel about $810 million in spending that lawmakers already approved, using a maneuver known as a pocket rescission that allows the money to lapse when the federal fiscal year ends on Wednesday, Sept. 30. The White House notice reached Capitol Hill on Friday, Sept. 25, leaving lawmakers only days to respond to a request the law expects them to have weeks to consider.

The largest share of the package falls on refugee services. More than half a billion dollars at the Department of Health and Human Services that supports refugees, asylum seekers and other noncitizens would be canceled, according to figures reported by NBC News and CBS News. The package also strikes roughly $70 million for international education and foreign language programs and about $56 million for housing counseling run by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The tactic turns on the Impoundment Control Act of 1974. Under that law, a president who does not want to spend money Congress has appropriated must ask lawmakers for permission, and Congress has 45 days to approve or ignore the request while the funds are frozen. When a request arrives in the final weeks of the fiscal year, the money can simply expire before that review period ends. The administration argues that the 45-day timeline cannot be followed for requests sent so late in the year and therefore does not bar the move.

The White House has used the approach before. Last year it canceled about $4.9 billion, most of it foreign aid, the same way. Groups that depended on that money sued, and the Supreme Court allowed the cancellation to proceed. The Government Accountability Office, the congressional watchdog that reviews impoundments, has said pocket rescissions are illegal.

The new package drew a sharp response from the senator who leads the committee that writes spending bills. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the Republican chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said the cancellation violates the law and that the Office of Management and Budget appeared to have deliberately held the money back for months. She said she would work with colleagues to respond. Democratic appropriators in both chambers condemned the move as well, accusing the administration of taking money that Congress had promised to communities.

The White House describes the cuts as a crackdown on waste. In its account, the president is using every available tool to stop spending that it calls harmful and that it says does not benefit American citizens. Supporters of the approach argue that a president should not be forced to spend money on programs he considers unnecessary, and that the Supreme Court’s handling of last year’s cancellation suggests the courts may be reluctant to stop him.

Critics in both parties see a larger question than the dollar figure. The Constitution gives Congress the power of the purse, and lawmakers who object say a president who can quietly let approved money run out at the end of each year gains a de facto line-item veto that Congress never granted. With the fiscal year closing within days, any challenge is likely to come in court rather than through a vote.