WASHINGTON—Democrats in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives are seeking to include language in government spending bills that would prevent the Trump administration from withholding any allocated funds.
DOGE, which is led by Elon Musk—the world’s richest man and executive chairman of social media company X and chief executive officer of Tesla and SpaceX—has since advised the administration to cancel contracts and withhold the spending of billions of dollars sanctioned by Congress for fiscal year 2025.
The withholding has affected the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), among others.
Democrats are incensed by the withholdings, given that many of the funds withheld were allocated to support progressive policy goals.
They have argued that the withholdings are illegal and violate Congress’s appropriations laws and the Constitution.
As a result, in ongoing negotiations about funding the government for the remainder of fiscal year 2025, Democrats are insisting on safeguards to ensure that any allocated funds will be spent and cannot be withheld.
“If [Republicans] want our votes, they need to work with us,” Senate Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the Democratic Party’s lead on the government funding process in the Senate, said at a press conference on Feb. 25.
“We need ... to protect Congress’s power of the purse ... that is the absolute bare minimum, and it’s frankly not asking a whole lot.”
“Lawfully appropriated funds authorized by Congress, which should be spent on behalf of the American people, have been frozen,” said House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) in a statement released by his office to The Epoch Times.
The withholding of funds by the administration has been challenged by lawsuits in several different federal courts.
“Trump does not control the power of the purse.”
Republicans have single-digit majorities in both houses of Congress.
This means that they will need Democrat votes in the Senate to pass any spending, or appropriations, bills.
The Senate’s rules require the invocation of cloture to limit debate on bills and advance them to final passage, or else they are filibustered.
Cloture requires 60 votes, meaning that Republicans—comprising 53 members of the body—need at least seven Democrat senators to vote in favor, assuming their own unanimity.
The safeguards to ensure funds are spent are unorthodox in appropriations bills.
In the recent past, due to their bipartisan nature, funds allocated by Congress have been spent by the executive branch without much controversy—obviating the need for any affirmative safeguards.
It’s unclear how this legislative language may read, or whether it will be effective.
“These are things that have not traditionally been in appropriations bills, that they’re asking for at this stage, and I think that’s hard to do,” House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole (R-Okla.), who is leading the appropriations process for House Republicans, told The Epoch Times.
“The president [also] has to sign it, so it can’t be something that he doesn’t want to sign.”
Formally, the procedure that governs the withholding of funds is specified in the Impoundment Control Act of 1974.
Under that law, the president must request that Congress pass a law rescinding funds, pending which time they may temporarily withhold funds.
However, if Congress does not act within 45 days of continuous session, the president can no longer withhold funds, and they must be spent as required.
Separately, the Supreme Court in 1975, in the case of Train v. City of New York, unanimously held that funds allocated by Congress must be spent.
Cole has cautioned Democrats to temper their demands, given their minority status.
“We [Republicans] are the majority in both chambers. It would be different if they [had] the majority in even one chamber, but they [don’t], and so I think the range of what they can credibly ask for is narrower,” he said.
Still, he admitted, “We need their votes.”
Regardless of Democrats’ disagreement with the Trump administration, they have made one thing clear: A government shutdown is off the table.
A “shutdown” occurs when appropriations expire. Usually, that date is Sept. 30, which is the last day of a fiscal year.
Congress is expected to have passed all its appropriations bills for the next fiscal year (beginning Oct. 1) by that date, though since fiscal year 1998 it has consistently failed to do so.
Instead, Congress always passes “continuing resolutions,” or “CRs,” that, in essence, authorize funding temporarily based on allocations for the previous fiscal year.
CRs, unless specified, do not allow for spending on new programs and, the longer they last, amount to an effective marginal cut in government spending—since, being at previous levels, it does not increase with inflation during the new fiscal year.
The latest CR, passed on Dec. 20, extends funding until March 14, by which time Congress must either pass regular spending bills or another CR, lest a shutdown occurs.
“Shutdowns are painful and costly. Democrats ... do not want a shutdown. We are at the table, negotiating in good faith, to fund the government,” Murray said.
“Democrats are willing to find the bipartisan common ground necessary to keep the government open, but the constitutional power of the purse of the United States Congress must be respected,” Jeffries said in his statement.
“We have to make sure that Congress’s power of the purse is respected and the law is complied with by this administration.”
The Senate and House Appropriations Committees did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
