Top Democratic funding negotiators are accusing the Trump administration of withholding spending plans for federal agencies and hundreds of programs required by law.
In a letter on Tuesday, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) criticized the White House budget chief for “overseeing the development of inconsistent and inadequate spending plans for fiscal year 2025 submitted by departments and agencies.”
“Your lack of transparency shows disdain for the right of the public to understand how taxpayer dollars are being spent and for the rule of law,” they wrote in the letter to Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russell Vought.
Their letter cited a provision in legislation enacted in March to avert a shutdown and fund the government through September, or the end of fiscal year 2025. That provision called for departments and agencies to submit “spending, expenditure, or operating” plans for fiscal year 2025 to House and Senate appropriators within 45 days of the measure’s enactment.
“Four weeks have now come and gone, and while the Committees began receiving some spending plans from departments and agencies consistent with the 45-day requirement, many agencies’ plans still have yet to be submitted or blatantly omit basic funding details at your agency’s direction,” the appropriators wrote. “These spending plans were coordinated through, shaped, and approved by OMB.”
The Hill has reached out to OMB for comment.
The appropriators said a spending plan submitted for the Department of Health and Human Services only included “high-level funding amounts and does not provide funding levels for hundreds of specific programs and activities.” They said it also included “530 asterisks in place of details about how this administration is choosing to fund – or not fund – hundreds of programs that the American people count on every day.”
A spending plan submitted for the Education Department also “completely omitted dozens of specific programs and activities and claimed that almost $13 billion was ‘unallocated,’” they wrote. They added a “revised spend plan” was sent for the department weeks later that included “$8 billion in ‘unallocated’ funding and continues to lack detail on dozens of programs now with only four months left in the fiscal year.”
“As the House and Senate Appropriations Committees intend to mark up the fiscal year 2026 bills next month, we demand that by the end of this month you comply with section 1113 and ensure that all spending plans contain sufficient information to demonstrate how each department and agency intends to prudently obligate all amounts provided by Congress for fiscal year 2025 within their period of availability and resubmit them to the Committees,” they wrote.
The letter is the latest instance of the OMB facing pressure from Democrats over what they’ve described as a lack of transparency on federal spending.
The letter also comes weeks after top GOP appropriators in the House and Senate joined their Democratic colleagues in calling for public access to be restored to a website taken down by OMB that showed how funding is apportioned to federal agencies.
