President Donald Trump will ask Congress to codify spending cuts, a top official at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) said on April 3.
At his nomination hearing, Eric Ueland, the acting chief of staff at OMB and Trump’s nominee for deputy director for management, told the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs that the White House “will be sending a rescission package—at least one—to Congress.”
A rescission package is when the administration requests Congress to undo funding that the legislative branch has already appropriated. It is not subject to the 60-vote filibuster threshold in the Senate that applies to most legislation, and therefore, such a move would only need a simple majority in both chambers of Congress.
“We’re excited about the partnership,” said Ueland. “And we’re looking forward to the president being able to sign into law actual, provable, spending eliminations through the process of rescission.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has expressed support for the process.
“It would be right for them to send a rescission package to Congress, for us to unwind that. We expect that that will be part of this process,” he told reporters last month.
In 2018, during his first term, Trump sent a $15 billion rescission package to a Republican-controlled Congress, but it was rejected.
“We do expect success,” said Ueland.
Congress is also expected to codify cuts recommended by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an advisory body conducting audits of federal agencies to identify waste, fraud, and abuse in spending.
Congress passed the continuing resolution last month, but it did not include codifying DOGE-related cuts.
“And then for FY26, for the next fiscal year, you’re going to see a very different process and a lot more efficient and effective spending for the people,” said Johnson.
During his nomination hearing, Ueland talked about the administration’s goal of shrinking the administrative state.
“Under the direction of OMB’s Director and Deputy Director, the [deputy director for management] and staff can be leaders in assessing and reforming the processes and operations that have made the federal government too large and too inefficient while ensuring that the American people receive the government services they deserve and need,” he said.
“OMB is underway figuring out whether the federal real estate footprint is too large and misaligned with taxpayer needs, and then rightsizing what we have, what we rent, and what we do.”
