Instead of coming clean about freezing CMF, Vought responded by saying OMB has released the ‘25-’26 CDFI funds – the discretionary $ OMB apportioned last week – w/o addressing the Rep’s Q about when OMB is going to release CMF $ for affordable housing. www.youtube.com/live/Ub4UiZ_...
Last week Rep. Edwards asked this pretty straightforward question about when OMB is going to unfreeze the Capital Magnet Fund, which gets money from fees outside the appropriations process. www.youtube.com/live/Ub4UiZ_...
One reason it's important to keep track of the details here is OMB is using the complexity of these cuts to pretend they have freed up money that is actually still frozen.
Violating this provision can trigger the Antideficiency Act, meaning personal liability for the OMB officials responsible. That could draw a range of administrative penalties, and for knowing and willingful violations: potential jail time.
The FY26 Approps Act renews a longstanding prohibition: you can’t use taxpayer dollars to “eliminate or reduce funding for a program” as proposed in the president’s budget — unless Congress has actually enacted that cut.
Congress didn’t cut CDFI. OMB did it anyway. www.congress.gov/119/bills/hr...
The same impoundment tactic OMB used on FY25 funds appears to have been applied to the $289M Congress just appropriated for CDFIs in FY26. Suggesting OMB doesn’t respect the recently passed bipartisan bills any more than it did last year’s CR openomb.org/file/11512114
Capital Magnet Fund: $290M out of $293M withheld. Last year, $410M+ from this account was made available. This fund supports affordable housing and community development lending. openomb.org/file/11509257
A second CDFI account: $320M out of $330M withheld in Category C. Last year, that account funded $178M+ for the CDFI Program. Again, Treasury can’t touch it. openomb.org/file/11492930
OMB is withholding $296M out of $316M in Emergency Capital Investment Funds (Category C). Last year $168M from this account went to CDFI Reinvestments. That money is now frozen. openomb.org/file/11477953
OMB Director Vought recently released FY2025 funds that had been impounded for months. A real concession, but it doesn’t change the broader picture. nativecdfi.net/blog/2026/04...
OMB has taken five separate cuts at the CDFI program. Last week, they walked back one. Four remain — and at least one may expose OMB officials to personal legal liability. Recently I explained the five cuts and how they happened
www.ifyoucankeepit.org/p/this-is-wh... 🧵
Looking at the apportionment for ED's Higher Ed programs there are a bunch zero'd out: Child Care Access Means Parents In School, Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need, FIPSE. And $1.9 billion 'unallocated' openomb.org/file/11431544
Enormous impoundment-related changes in Trump/Vought's Circular A-11 update from Friday, which is OMB's guidance to agencies
They:
-removed the definition of impoundment
-said GAO's impoundment determinations don't matter
-claimed pocket rescission authority
-claimed profound deferral authority
🧵
But Trump's OMB has never addressed the 1975 OMB statement from that same year that they “did not plan the date of our rescission proposals so as to foreclose the usual requirement for release of funds and that we do not consider that this one case establishes a precedent.” bit.ly/4mZPQgG
The NYPost noted this AM that Trump’s OMB has pointed at past examples from Ford and Carter they claim are precedents for this power grab but looking more closely, those examples don’t cut it, you can read more here: www.lawfaremedia.org/article/past...
It is worth reading the law – in addition to the provision in §683(b) that requires OMB to spend the money unless Congress acts, you can see for yourself there is no provision that explicitly says OMB can withhold the money while Congress considers the proposal. bit.ly/3VqnGQa
Agree w/ Sen. Collins "Any effort to rescind appropriated funds without congressional approval is a clear violation of the law.”
Impoundment Control Act says $ must be spent UNLESS Congress acts to rescind it - there's no get-out-of-spending-free card for OMB if they submit their paperwork late.
Seems like a good time to remind folks that sec. 718 of the FY24 FSGG Appropriations Act still applies to FY25 money, and bars the use of funds GOVERNMENT-WIDE “for publicity or propaganda purposes within the United States” unless “authorized by Congress.”
Before Congress passed the ICA, plenty of courts heard these cases and provided relief to parties suing over impoundments, here are just a few. protectdemocracy.org/wp-content/u...
The ICA says "Nothing contained in this Act... shall be construed as... affecting in any way the claims or defenses of any party to litigation concerning any impoundment; or superseding any provision of law which requires the obligation of budget authority or the making of outlays thereunder." §1001
Still making my way through this morning's D.C. Circuit opinion in the foreign aid funding case, but right off the bat am incredibly surprised a court would think the Impoundment Control Act precludes plaintiffs seeking relief when the ICA says the opposite. media.cadc.uscourts.gov/opinions/doc...
And the statement wraps explaining how a stay would “effectively cut the Congress’s purse strings” while denying the stay maintains the separation of powers balance laid out in our Constitution- granting Congress the power of the purse.
One of my favorite bits of the statement explains that apportionment is NOT an executive power — it is the executive exercising statutory authority granted by Congress though its power of the purse.
And makes clear that the disclosures the law requires include those pesky footnotes where funds are getting frozen.
Judge Henderson’s statement not only explains how mandating public disclosure of apportionments fits squarely within Congress’s power of the purse- but lays out why our Constitution grants that power to congress in the first place.
And that’s just CDC- other HHS programs, and funds at other agencies may also be frozen by footnotes that today’s decision could require OMB to finally make public once again— protectdemocracy.org/work/restori...
And while some CDC money may now be on its way out the door, other programs may still have their funding frozen in a footnote- www.npr.org/sections/sho...
Last week WSJ broke news that OMB was holding up CDC funds in an apportionment footnote- exactly the kind of info this website would force the agency to disclose www.wsj.com/politics/pol...
A DC Circuit appeals panel just unanimously denied OMB’s request for a stay in the @protectdemocracy.org case to get the apportionment website back online- so we can all see how OMB is managing your tax dollars - visibility we need now more than ever. media.cadc.uscourts.gov/orders/docs/...
I organized an economist amicus brief in V.O.S. Selections Inc. v. Trump, the "Liberation Day" tariffs case in which the government's appeal will soon be considered by the Federal Circuit Appeal Court.