During a House Appropriations Committee hearing on Wednesday, Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) questioned OMB Director Russell Vought on the appropriations process.
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00:00the Ranking Member, Hoyer, for any questions he may have.
00:07Congress passes the budget.
00:10Do you consider the budget that Congress passes to be a suggestion or a directive?
00:16We believe it's a proposal for Congress to consider.
00:19We propose, and you obviously take it as a policy proposal
00:23and send it through your appropriations process.
00:25Question, Director. Once we pass that back to you, do you take it as a suggestion or a directive?
00:33It's a directive. We believe it's important for the congressional appropriations process
00:40to give us the levels as consistent with the power of the purse to set levels by which we can't go above.
00:48And therefore, you consider it a ceiling?
00:51We do believe it is a ceiling.
00:53So we send you a budget and say spend $100 on X objective.
00:57You can spend anywhere between $1 and $99 or $100.
01:01Is that accurate from your perspective?
01:03No, I don't think it's accurate from my perspective.
01:05I think it's much more similar to if you've asked us to perform a function
01:09and you've given us $100 million and if we can perform it for $80 million,
01:15there is given the system as to whether we are required constitutionally,
01:21we don't believe that we are, to push every last dollar out the door
01:24and lead to use it or lose it situations where we are creating waste, foreign abuse at the agencies.
01:31And the Congress made provision for that.
01:33It's called a rescission. Is that accurate?
01:35There is one tool that Congress, is one of many tools that Congress has given to deal with that scenario.
01:41The other tool is the unilateral judgment of the President of the United States and or yourself not to spend?
01:48No. No, I was actually referring under the ICA to normal rescissions, deferrals, pocket rescissions.
01:54There's all manner of provisions in the ICA in addition to just the agency doing the work that it does programmatically
02:01to review whether the spending that Congress has appropriated to an agency within the consistent with the law,
02:11authorizing committees is there and can be done consistent with the President's views as he was elected on behalf of the American people.
02:18So, do you believe you have traumatized the people at OMB?
02:25No, I don't.
02:27So, notwithstanding that, did they also get the letter sent to two plus million people?
02:33They did.
02:34Was a judgment made as to how many of the people at OMB were absolutely necessary to do the job you now want to expand?
02:42No, and in fact...
02:44No judgment was made on that.
02:45So, as it pertains to the letter that you're referring to, it went out.
02:49I believe it went out before I was in office as the Director.
02:52And I don't think we lost very few at all.
02:56And my hope was that we wouldn't lose anyone from the deferred...
02:59But you lost a substantial amount throughout the government service
03:04without any understanding of how critical their work was to the task at hand.
03:10Is that accurate?
03:11Well, again, it was based on their choice.
03:12Is that accurate?
03:13I don't think it actually is accurate because the decision was made to give the employees the chance to make that determination.
03:21I don't think it was done lightly.
03:22And I think they made those employees thought long and hard about whether it made sense.
03:27I agree it wasn't done lightly.
03:28Obviously, it was considered blitzkrieg on the entire federal government.
03:32But nobody knew whether or not critically important people were going to take that or not.
03:38Isn't that accurate?
03:39Well, I think it's important to reflect that we don't ask employees to be in these positions and locked into these positions.
03:46There is no reason that they would have had to take that opportunity.
03:50And it's something that was not in any way compelled upon them.
03:55Of course, it wasn't compelled.
03:57But nor did you have or Mr. Musk have or his people any knowledge of who would take it and who didn't.
04:05And therefore, it was simply across the board, which could have cost.
04:10Let's say everybody said yes.
04:11Now, probably everybody wouldn't have said yes.
04:16But that would have been a cataclysmic event for the United States.
04:21Do you believe this is the way people should be treated?
04:23I think all employees, political and career, should be treated with respect and dignity.
04:30And to have that reflected through all of our employment processes.
04:33The people who just laughed obviously don't share that view.
04:38They're all people who were removed involuntarily.
04:41One way or another.
04:43They were traumatized.
04:45So you accomplish your objective, which I think personally is not an objective that either any personnel manager should be very proud of.
04:55How many people are in the administrative leave are being paid not to work?
04:59Congressman, I just would push back on your characterization.
05:04It's never been my desire to traumatize individuals or workers at federal agencies.
05:10Why did you say that?
05:10Because you didn't actually listen to the entirety of the – in the context of what I said.
05:16I was referring specifically to bureaucracies that are weaponized against the American people.
05:21So do I believe that at the NIH or the OMB or VA that across the federal government –
05:27And Noah, that there aren't career individuals that are doing incredible work and are great public servants.
05:34But the notion that we don't have weaponized bureaucracies – and we saw this in the last administration –
05:38that are aimed at parts of our own citizenry.
05:43The chair now recognizes Mr. Womack for any questions he may have.