Moderate Democrats want Congress to wrest back some control over government spending from the president.
Their proposal: a major overhaul of the budget process that would impose new limitations on the White House.
A new bill introduced on Friday by the Blue Dog Coalition would end pocket rescissions, the process through which President Donald Trump rescinded more than $800 million in already appropriated funds, according to bill text shared exclusively with The Washington Sun.
“It feels like once some weasel finds a new trick to outmaneuver congressional intent, that can become standard, and you know, [there is] the importance of saying we’re gonna hold the line here,” said Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Washington), a co-sponsor of the bill. “We will exert our status as a co-equal branch.”
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The bill, called the Congressional Budget Reform Act, is one example of how Democrats are looking to hold the president accountable should they win back the majority in the midterms. Democrats and Republicans alike have expressed their frustration about the Trump administration undermining Congress’ power of the purse, but the Republican majority has largely rubber stamped the White House’s actions.
Bill sponsor Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine), who is not running for reelection, said lawmakers’ concerns about the budget process increases the likelihood that they prioritize the issue as they plan next year’s agenda during the lame-duck period.
“Congress has been, in a bipartisan way, protective of the power of the purse,” Golden said in an interview with The Sun. “There will be an appetite for some of these things about impoundments, rescissions.”
The Blue Dog bill would prohibit the Office of Management and Budget from requesting rescissions or withholding funds within 90 days of a line item’s expiration.
The Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 says the president can temporarily hold funds for up to 45 days while Congress reviews the rescission request. The Trump administration has attempted to subvert Congress’ role by submitting these rescissions for review so close to the funds’ expiration date that Congress doesn’t have the full 45 days to act. The Government Accountability Office has concluded that practice goes against the law.
“Congress is in no way helpless in any of this. … They have the spending power and they just have to have the votes in order to wield it,” said Devin O’Connor, a senior federal fiscal policy fellow at the liberal-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
The GAO — Congress’s watchdog which deemed the pocket rescissions inconsistent with the law during Trump’s first term — concluded late last month the president lacked the legal authority to withhold the $800 million in funds beyond their expiration date.
The GAO is the only group that can sue the administration for violating the Impoundment Control Act under an August 2025 ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, but the office has not brought a lawsuit against the Trump administration.
Appropriations Chair Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) floated that Congress could authorize the GAO to sue — something it is already authorized to do — or outside groups can pursue their own lawsuits. She said she is considering adding guardrails against pocket rescissions in the next appropriations bills in December.
A spokesperson for Collins declined to comment further on her strategy to curtail pocket rescissions.
Golden contended that GAO wouldn’t have to sue the Trump administration if Congress passed his legislation, which goes beyond pocket rescissions. The Congressional Budget Reform Act would trigger automatic 14-day continuing resolutions to prevent a government shutdown. In addition, it would package Congress’s 12 annual appropriations bills into four minibuses, and require lawmakers to stay in session until they are completed.
The bill would also require a 60-vote threshold in the Senate to approve the president’s rescissions requests. In 2025, Congress voted along party lines to cancel $9.4 billion in rescissions proposed by the White House.
Trump’s more than $800 million in rescission requests includes $567 million for refugee and asylum-holder assistance programs administered by the Department of Health and Human Services. Other targets of the cuts include high school and college success programs for students in the U.S. and the Office of Minority Health.
Blue Dog Democrats told The Sun that Democrats should not adopt pocket rescissions and other budgetary maneuvers Trump has implemented should they come back to power.
Gluesenkamp Perez said Democrats who want to adopt Trump’s tactics fail both their colleagues in vulnerable seats and their constituents.
“We’re seeing in this shift in the House, you’ll lose your election, so you’ll lose the chicken game in the short run. In the long term, you’re fucking driving the economy into a ditch here,” said Gluesenkamp Perez, whose race is rated a toss-up by The Cook Political Report. “I’m hopeful that our colleagues are cognizant of the consequences of this for folks who are going to lose their seats.”
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