Chairman Arrington Statement on Russ Vought Pick for Trump’s Budget Office
Last week, President Trump announced his nominee for the Office of Management and Budget Russ Vought, a former Trump Administration alum and unapologetic fiscal conservative devoted to cutting wasteful government spending.
Paul Krawzak with Roll Call wrote in a recent release highlighting Russ Vought’s previous work that aimed to achieve less government regulation, incentives for businesses, and pro-growth policies.
Chairman Arrington Statement:
House Budget Committee Chairman Arrington (R-TX) praised President Trump’s nominee:
“Russ Vought is a battle-tested budget hawk who will be ready day one to help lead the fight against a wasteful and weaponized federal government that has completely lost its moral and constitutional compass.
I look forward to working with Russ and President Trump to rein-in Washington and restore fiscal sanity before it’s too late.”
Word on the Street:
Paul Krawzak, Via Roll Call:
- “Russ Vought, the hard-driving budget director from President-elect Donald Trump’s first administration, will be nominated for a second stint in the job.”
- “An unapologetic fiscal and social conservative, Vought is an aggressive advocate of cutting nondefense spending — but not what he calls the earned entitlements, Social Security and Medicare — and using presidential powers to shape government spending.”
- “Vought is “an aggressive cost cutter and deregulator who will help us implement our America First Agenda across all Agencies,” Trump posted Friday on Truth Social, his social media platform. ‘Russ knows exactly how to dismantle the Deep State and end Weaponized Government, and he will help us return Self Governance to the People.’”
- “Vought has stressed the need for a president to exert control over the bureaucracies in agencies and departments, which he said have gotten used to pursuing their own agendas.”
- “He said success in doing this requires ‘boldness to bend or break the bureaucracy to the presidential will and self-denial to use the bureaucratic machine to send power away from Washington and back to America’s families, faith communities, local governments, and states.’”
- “Among the ways to achieve this, Vought said, are to make clear that federal agencies are accountable to the president and not “independent,” and to restore “impoundment” authority, allowing the president to spend less than appropriated by Congress.”
- “In a fiscal 2023 budget blueprint put out by the [Center for Renewing America] and dubbed “A Commitment to End Woke and Weaponized Government,” Vought challenged the view that the projected exhaustion of the Social Security and Medicare trust funds is the most serious fiscal priority. His plan has no cuts for Social Security or to Medicare beneficiaries.”
- “Instead, Vought proposed cutting nondefense discretionary programs by $3.5 trillion over a decade, trimming Medicaid by more than $2 trillion and repealing the 2010 health care law’s insurance subsidies, among other reductions.”
- “Before going to work for OMB, Vought was a vice president at Heritage Action. Earlier, he had served as policy director for the House Republican Conference under then Indiana Rep. and later Trump Vice President Mike Pence. Vought also worked as executive director of the conservative Republican Study Committee and as an aide to former Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas."
