Romina Boccia and Dominik Lett
As government funding runs out by March 14, Democrats are attempting to use the appropriations process to block recent cost-cutting measures led by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), raising questions about the possibility of a government shutdown. The executive’s ongoing attempts to reduce fraud, waste, and improper payments and eliminate government programs seen as out of line with the president’s priorities have incited legal and public backlash. However, they highlight a real problem: a federal government that has grown too big and is weighed down by inefficiency, scope creep, waste, and layers of red tape.
Legislators should welcome executive efforts to downsize the federal bureaucracy and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of federal government operations while ensuring those efforts are well-executed and accountable. But they shouldn’t rely on the executive to do the heavy lifting for them. As Cato’s Gene Healy put it in a recent Reason commentary, “The federal leviathan is a creature of statutory law and congressional appropriations. There’s no dismantling it without buy-in from the branch that got us into this mess.”
Perils of Relying on the Executive
In late January, the Office of Management and Budget issued a sweeping memo freezing trillions in federal spending in pursuit of “ending ‘wokeness’ and the weaponization of government,” among other policy priorities. Administrative chaos ensued, and two days later OMB rescinded the initial memorandum after public and legal backlash. Meanwhile, DOGE has taken various haphazard actions with the stated objective of reducing fraud, eliminating improper payments, and shrinking the federal workforce.
These actions by OMB and DOGE are being carried out as America faces a debt crisis, primarily driven by the automatic growth in entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, and, to a lesser extent, a massive federal bureaucracy that engages in too many functions best left to the states, localities, and the private sector. Without significant course correction, America could face a slow, painful economic decline as interest costs rise and high federal debt hampers growth, potentially culminating in a sudden, catastrophic fiscal crisis.
The best solution to this problem is pro-growth spending cuts, particularly reducing automatic benefit increases for entitlements, reforming welfare programs, and right-sizing the federal government by eliminating agencies and programs that engage in functions outside the proper scope of federal operations. While responsibility for such necessary statutory changes lies with Congress, some on Capitol Hill are looking to the executive branch and DOGE to do the heavy lifting for them—potentially by allowing the executive to pause or cancel spending unilaterally without congressional approval (aka impoundment). Legislators should not abdicate their constitutional responsibilities to control the federal purse strings and rely on the executive to handle a crisis Congress created.
Article I of the Constitution vests the “power of the purse” in the legislative branch. This responsibility to control government spending was not assigned to Congress accidentally; it was designed to be a critical check on the executive branch. Enabling presidents to unilaterally make spending decisions, which are likely reversed by a future administration, will not resolve America’s rising debt burden, driven by statutorily authorized automatic spending increases in Social Security and Medicare. The governance risks, however, are clear. Eroding Congress’s power of the purse brings us closer to an all-powerful imperial presidency, weakening checks and balances that secure Americans’ freedoms.
Even if the current administration achieved its waste-cutting policy goals without undermining the rule of law and contravening statute, general impoundment authority is a dangerous weapon that will eventually land in the wrong hands. A future administration could freeze funding for essential federal functions, such as defense. Worse, impoundments can be leveraged to extract political concessions, undermining congressional power. Expansions of presidential power today will be taken advantage of by future administrations, regardless of party, at the expense of liberty for all.
Lasting policy change requires statutory changes. And history shows us that successful cuts require negotiations to bridge divides within and across party lines. The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996—also known as welfare reform—is a powerful example of this dynamic. Signed into law by President Bill Clinton with bipartisan support from a Republican-controlled Congress, the Act significantly reshaped US welfare programs through political compromise, with both parties motivated to change an unsustainable status quo.
While slow, imperfect, and frustrating, the legislative compromise process provides opportunities for public scrutiny, accountability, and policy refinement. The same cannot be said for spending cuts by executive fiat, which can be developed by a few powerful people and unilaterally deployed in a non-transparent, chaotic manner, only to result in sudden policy whiplash. That’s hardly a recipe for meaningful spending cuts, much less the permanent spending reductions needed to stabilize the debt or balance the budget.
Congressional Leadership Needed
Substantial, lasting deficit reduction will require reforms that have credibility: negotiated by elected representatives, executed accountably, and resilient against sudden administrative reversals. OMB and DOGE will not be able to accomplish this alone. To make DOGE and OMB’s waste-cutting efforts more effective, Congress could grant the president reorganization authority to consolidate and eliminate redundant agencies while demanding transparency and accountability. The Reorganizing Government Act of 2025, introduced by Rep. Comer (R‑KY) and Sen. Lee (R‑UT), does just that, authorizing reorganization of the executive branch subject to a final up-or-down vote by Congress. The executive is well-equipped, with congressional guidance and support, to review federal government operations, streamline duplicative functions, reduce improper payments, and close off avenues for fraud. In the meantime, Congress should focus on more substantive spending reductions necessary to stabilize the debt and keep interest rates and inflation risks in check.
With the passage of the House budget resolution, Republicans now have a pivotal opportunity—and heightened pressure—to tackle meaningful spending reform. Per the budget resolution, Republicans need to find at least $1.5 trillion in 10-year mandatory spending cuts to pursue a reconciliation package needed to fund much of President Trump’s policy agenda. One unique quirk of this budget resolution is that, to an extent, the size of any potential tax cut package is tied to the size of spending cuts. This is assuming the Senate doesn’t succeed in its plans to reverse course by advancing a current policy baseline—which would discount the very real deficit impact of extending tax cuts set to expire this year.
Now is not the time to pass the buck for spending decisions, hoping DOGE and OMB will wave a magic wand and close a $2 trillion deficit. This is the moment to go big, with Congress uniquely positioned to pursue significant structural changes to programs like Medicaid that reverse harmful Biden-era expansions and refocus low-income health benefits toward their intended populations while meaningfully reducing federal spending. Congress should reduce spending far in excess of the $2.5 trillion “stretch goal” laid out in the budget resolution, actually delivering a reconciliation package that reduces the deficit.
If legislators can muster the courage to take ownership of the spending process and deliver on major spending cuts, they can reassure bond markets, bring down interest rates, rein in inflation, and boost American incomes. That’ll do a whole lot more for Americans than flashy DOGE dividend checks.
