Congress Should Pass the DOGE Cuts

National Review Online

Monday, March 10, 2025

 

In a welcome sign of initiative and agency from the legislative branch, some Senate Republicans want spending cuts from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to be part of a rescission package to be approved by Congress. It’s a great idea, and it represents the resurrection of a power Congress should be using more often.

 

The 1974 law restricting the president’s impoundment power after it was abused by Richard Nixon is called the Impoundment Control Act, not the Impoundment Elimination Act. One of the controls it put in place is a process by which the president can send a request to Congress to rescind budget authority that Congress had previously enacted.

 

The president lists specific provisions from the budget that he’d like to rescind and gives reasons why. Congress then votes on them. If it approves them, the budget authority is removed and federal agencies aren’t allowed to spend the money any longer.

 

Ronald Reagan used this power more than any other president. In fiscal year 1981, he proposed 133 rescissions and Congress approved 101 of them, which cut $11 billion from the budget. As a percentage of federal outlays, that would be like cutting over $100 billion today.

 

George H. W. Bush also used the rescission power to cut spending. One of his rescission packages in 1992 spurred a productive back-and-forth between the House and the Senate. After amendments that included spending cuts the congressional committees came up with, the rescission package passed both chambers with massive majorities.

 

The rescission power fell into disuse under Bill Clinton. George W. Bush never used it once. Trump tried to use it during his first term but failed because of a lack of coordination with Congress. It’s time to try again.

 

Senators Rand Paul (R., Ky.) and Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) have told NBC News they would like to vote on a rescission package from the president. “I love all the stuff they’re doing, but we got to vote on it,” Paul said of DOGE’s efforts to cut spending. Graham said he wants the executive branch to “get away from the personalities and the drama, take the work product and vote on it.”

 

The power of the purse is Congress’s under the Constitution, and it’s healthy for senators to want to secure it. The rescission process under the Impoundment Control Act was created in response to an overreaching executive branch in the 1970s, and it should be used today to keep the spending power in Congress.

 

The good news for Republicans is that the Impoundment Control Act limits debate of rescission packages, which would allow the Senate to pass something with a simple majority.

 

A simple majority is basically all Republicans have in the House, and they’ll need effective leadership from Speaker Mike Johnson and from the White House to get on the same page and vote for a rescission package, should one be presented.

 

A successful effort would likely involve Elon Musk in his capacity as public spokesman for DOGE, making it clear to Republicans that a vote for the rescission package is a vote for cleaning up wasteful spending. The package should also be crafted by the White House with congressional input, so that Republicans know they’ll be receiving something they can all vote for.

 

Using the rescission process under the Impoundment Control Act is one way to ensure that DOGE-inspired spending cuts pass legal muster. It would also bring some order to what has been at times a chaotic and undisciplined effort. Requiring the president to list the items he’d like to see cut in a statement that Congress can then take up and approve with a roll call vote would help make clear to the American people what DOGE is doing and give Republican members of Congress buy-in to tell their constituents they did something to cut spending.

 

The rescission process is not going to come anywhere close to balancing the budget or changing the long-run trajectory of the federal debt burden. That will still require entitlement reform and spending cuts enacted through the appropriations process. But when DOGE finds dumb spending to eliminate, the president should put together a rescission package, and the speaker and Senate majority leader should work to pass it as soon as they can. A little spring cleaning of the budget wouldn’t hurt.