WASHINGTON – The money started drying up quickly, almost as soon as President Donald Trump began issuing his executive orders.

Funds from Head Start are used for early childhood initiatives; grants from the National Institutes of Health serve other purposes. Additional funding supports public libraries and museums nationwide. Moreover, funds from a major bipartisan infrastructure law assist in school renovations and the installation of electric vehicle charging stations. The Federal Emergency Management Agency provides assistance for food and shelter.

“There is a lot of concern circulating,” stated Tommy Sheridan, deputy director at the National Head Start Association, whose organization expressed early worries about potential funding delays affecting children and families.

He emphasized that, although funding is primarily being disbursed again due to Head Start’s established history — marking its 60th anniversary this year — “It’s crucial to ensure our funding remains consistent.”

Overall, substantial amounts of money have been paused, terminated, or withheld by the Trump administration this year — with congressional estimates suggesting as much as $410 billion is endangered. This represents one of the boldest challenges to the federal process in half a century, since budget laws were restructured during the Nixon administration.

Trump’s funding cuts violate law, watchdog says

Trump’s decision to direct government agencies to suspend spending that was already sanctioned by Congress and signed into law has been labeled a violation by a nonpartisan watchdog group. This action is sparking a crisis from Capitol Hill to other areas, fueled by significant distrust as legislators debate measures to avert a federal government shutdown.

“We should all be highly concerned with the unlawful direction the administration is steering towards,” stated Sen. Patty Murray, lead Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, during a summer session with Trump’s budget director, Russ Vought, a key figure in Project 2025.

On the surface, the standoff between Congress and the White House looks like a governmental dispute over federal spending levels, and the Trump administration’s desire to end so-called “woke” and wasteful programs across the nation, and the world.

But from DOGE’s budget-slashing efforts under billionaire Elon Musk to the budget rescission packages Vought has sent to Capitol Hill, what’s unfolding is a deeper debate over the separation of powers — raising stark questions over what happens if the White House moves more aggressively to cut House and Senate lawmakers out of the federal funding process.

This week, Trump’s Office of Management and Budget under Vought directed agencies to prepare for mass firings — reductions in force — rather than simply furloughs of federal workers, in the event of a shutdown next week.

White House, Congress and the separation of powers

“This is a high point in presidential assertion over the spending power — it might be the highest point ever,” said Kevin Kosar, a scholar at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute.

While past presidents challenged Congress before — Jimmy Carter simply vetoed dozens of spending bills, and George W. Bush used presidential signing statements to carve out sections of legislation he disagreed with — Kosar said what Trump is doing “really garbles the logic” of the entire budget process.

“The rules don’t really apply much any more,” he said.

And it’s coming to an inflection point next week, Sept. 30, when Congress must pass legislation to keep the government from shutting down.

Vought’s office did not respond to a request for an interview, but he has been vocal about his views — and what’s to come.

From the pages of Project 2025

Writing in Project 2025, Vought explained that “the great challenge” facing a conservative president “is the existential need for aggressive use of the vast powers of the executive branch.”

Vought said this will require a “boldness to bend or break the bureaucracy to the presidential will.”

Since Trump took office in January, the federal watchdog, the Government Accountability Office, has issued a flurry of notices of violations in a rare reprimand of instances where the Trump administration has failed to unleash the money in accordance with the appropriation laws from Congress.

Among the dozens of investigations GAO opened this year, the funding uncertainty around Head Start, the NIH, museums and libraries, energy and transportation infrastructure programs and FEMA are among those that rose to become violations. More decisions are expected in the days ahead, before the Sept. 30 deadline for the federal government to get certain funds out the door.

Edda Emmanuelli Perez, the general counsel at GAO, which was created more than 100 years ago as a check on federal spending, said presidents have the ability to roll back spending, so long as it follows the process.

“The president has that authority to make these proposals,” she said in an interview.

“If Congress then decides, yes, we agree, we’re going to pass a law to cancel the funds, then the funds get cancelled,” she said. “If Congress does not pass it, then that means the president has to, again, go back to the terms of the law and release those funds.”

After Nixon cut funds, Congress created a new law — and it’s now being challenged

That’s outlined in the Impoundment Control Act, which Congress approved in 1974 after concerns over then-President Richard Nixon’s refusal to allocate funds on programs he opposed. It requires the White House to notify Congress of its proposed rescissions. Congress then has 45 days, under a fast-track procedure, to vote on the president’s proposal.

This summer, Congress, where Republicans hold the majority, approved Trump’s request to claw back some $9 billion in already approved funding for public broadcasting, including National Public Radio, and certain foreign aid programs, over the objections of Democrats.

But Vought is testing the limits of the impoundment law.

The White House late last month sent Congress a second rescissions package of $4.9 billion in cuts to USAID foreign aid programs, bumping up against the Sept. 30 year-end deadline. If Congress fails to act before next Tuesday, the money would essentially go away, in a so-called “pocket rescission.”

“The Trump Administration is committed to getting America’s fiscal house in order by cutting government spending that is woke, weaponized, and wasteful,” the White House said in a message to Congress announcing the rescissions proposal.

“Now, for the first time in 50 years, the President is using his authority under the Impoundment Control Act to deploy a pocket rescission, cancelling $5 billion in foreign aid and international organization funding.”

Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the powerful chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, has said the administration’s attempt to rescind the funds without congressional approval would be “a clear violation of the law.”

But late Friday, the Supreme Court, in a victory for Trump’s reach, extended an order allowing the administration to keep the funds frozen.