President Trump just yanked almost a billion taxpayer dollars away from programs nobody voted for.
The establishment is reacting exactly the way you would expect.
And one Republican senator fired off language that tells you everything about where her loyalties actually lie.
What Trump Actually Did With That $810 Million
Trump sent a notice to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) announcing 11 rescissions of congressionally appropriated budget authority totaling $810 million, using a mechanism called a “pocket rescission” — a proposed cancellation of spending timed so late in the federal fiscal year that it takes effect regardless of whether Congress acts to approve or block it.
The rescissions package targeted programs across the Departments of Commerce, Education, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, and Justice, as well as international assistance programs.
The single largest cut — $567 million that previously funded pro-illegal immigration programs and non-governmental organizations that provided services to refugees, asylees, and other non-citizens and put unaccompanied children in harm’s way — came straight out of Health and Human Services.
The White House had a straightforward answer for why that money is no longer necessary. Thanks to President Trump’s successful border policies, the illegal alien invasion is over and there are fewer people crossing the border than ever before.
Another $10 million came from the Minority Business Development Agency — a program that directs grants to businesses based on the race of the business owners. The White House said the core mission and function of the MBDA is discrimination based on race, noting that a US District Court found in 2024 that the agency’s presumption of “social disadvantage based on race or ethnicity” in its funding decisions was unconstitutional.
The rescissions package also cut into immigration-related programs, education and research grants, housing counseling, the Justice Department’s Community Relations Service, and initiatives focused on climate change and diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Trump wrote to Johnson formally notifying Congress of the action, stating: “In accordance with . . . the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974, I herewith report 11 rescissions of budget authority, totaling $810 million.”
This Isn’t the First Time Trump Has Used This Tool
Last year, President Trump took the historic step of utilizing long-neglected Presidential authorities provided to him under the Impoundment Control Act to deploy the first “pocket rescission” in 50 years. That round targeted foreign aid — nearly $5 billion worth.
Trump rescinded nearly $5 billion in foreign aid in the first pocket rescission since 1977, outraging congressional Democrats and sparking a court battle, and he won a 6-3 ruling from the Supreme Court allowing him to proceed on the grounds that his prerogative to conduct foreign affairs was more important.
The Supreme Court’s ruling on that earlier rescission did not, however, settle the broader legal question. The Supreme Court order did not address the legality of pocket rescissions, so that question remains outstanding. This new round targets domestic spending, which means the next legal battle — if one comes — will play out on different ground than the foreign affairs context the Court relied on before.
Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought and General Counsel Mark Paoletta have pointed to instances where Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter arguably made pocket rescissions in the 1970s, and the latest action could test — and potentially expand — further use of the practice.
A White House press release announcing the funding rescissions notes that some of the organizations targeted are led by people who worked in the administration of former President Barack Obama.
Susan Collins Steps Up to Defend the Spending
US Senator Susan Collins (R-ME), who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, took to social media to blast the move the same day it dropped.
Collins fired off a post on X stating: “The independent Government Accountability Office has concluded that pocket rescissions are unlawful and not permitted by the Impoundment Control Act. Any effort to rescind appropriated funds without congressional approval is a clear violation of the law. I will work with my colleagues to address these illegal actions.”
Collins, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, framed the move as an attempt by Trump and Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought to circumvent Congress’s constitutional authority over federal spending.
She also described it as the latest attempt by OMB to “undermine Congress’s Constitutional power of the purse.”
And she added: “Not only is the delay itself an impoundment that was not reported to Congress, but also it is a usurpation of Congress’s appropriations powers. OMB is an agency of the executive branch. It does not get to decide which programs are worth funding.”
The Government Accountability Office, which is a legislative branch agency, agrees with Collins that the practice is illegal. The administration disagrees. The courts have not resolved it.
But notice what Collins chose to defend. She didn’t just raise a procedural objection to the method. She went to the mat for the money itself — $567 million flowing to NGOs serving illegal aliens, $10 million bankrolling unconstitutional racial preferences, and a long list of DEI and climate programs that a federal court already said discriminated on the basis of race.
Collins has been in this seat before. She voted against Trump nominees when the establishment wanted her to. She raises constitutional objections at politically convenient moments. The pattern is familiar enough that nobody should be shocked to see her carry water for programs that exist primarily to subsidize illegal entry and race-based government handouts.
What Collins calls the “constitutional power of the purse” often looks, in practice, like the power of Congress to keep sending money to causes the American people never asked for and can’t vote out. When the executive branch finds a mechanism to stop it, the establishment reaches for the word “illegal” the way a reflex reaches for a shield.
The White House framed its position plainly: “President Trump is committed to utilizing all possible tools to cut wasteful and harmful government spending that does not benefit American citizens.”
That’s not a legal argument. It’s a statement of priorities. And it’s an accurate description of what the rescissions package actually does. The $567 million for non-citizen services didn’t benefit American citizens. The $10 million for the MBDA didn’t benefit American citizens on a color-blind basis — it was expressly designed to exclude them if they were the wrong race. A federal court said so in 2024.
The timing argument Collins and others raise is real in a narrow procedural sense. Typically, Congress can review the president’s proposed spending cuts before they take effect, but Trump made that all but impossible by announcing the rescissions with just five days left in the federal fiscal year. That’s the whole point of a pocket rescission. The administration used the tool precisely because it works. The question of whether it’s legal will go to the courts, as it did last time.
Last time, Trump won 6-3 at the Supreme Court. The foreign affairs context was different, yes. But the justices have seen this administration’s approach to spending restraint and declined to shut it down. Establishment Republicans like Collins who expected the Court to be their backstop learned something important from that round.
The deeper issue here has nothing to do with the Impoundment Control Act. It has to do with who decides how the government spends money that belongs to the American people. Congress appropriated hundreds of millions of dollars for organizations staffed by Obama alumni to serve people who entered the country illegally. That spending never reflected a public consensus. It reflected the preferences of a bureaucratic class that has been running the same programs under different administrations since long before most voters were paying attention.
Trump found a lever. He pulled it. And the people who benefited from the old arrangement are calling it unconstitutional. They may even be right on the narrow legal question. But the moral case for spending $567 million on illegal alien services when the border is under control — and $10 million on a program a federal court already ruled unconstitutional — is considerably weaker than the legal argument they’re making.
Collins will work with her colleagues. Lawsuits may follow. The courts will sort out the Impoundment Control Act question eventually. But the political reality is plain: Trump used a legitimate executive tool to kill programs that shouldn’t have existed in the first place, and the people defending those programs are doing so in the name of congressional procedure rather than in defense of the spending itself — because the spending itself is indefensible.
Sources: New York Post; White House briefing statement, “President Trump Takes Historic Action to Eliminate Wasteful and Harmful Spending,” September 25, 2026; Washington Times; Mediaite; Raw Story