The U.S. Capitol, as seen on Oct. 9, 2024. (Photo by Jane Norman/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson postponed a vote on the budget resolution that was supposed to take place Wednesday, as he tried to get the support of far-right members of the party who object because it won’t go far enough to achieve their goals of slashing government spending.

Johnson, R-La., said he hoped the House would be able to vote on the tax and spending blueprint Thursday, before leaving town for a two-week recess, though he didn’t rule out setting up a conference process with the Senate, or changing the budget resolution and sending it back across the Capitol.

“We are working through some good ideas and solutions to get everybody there,” Johnson said. “It may not happen tonight, but probably by tomorrow morning.”

Johnson’s comments came after he huddled behind closed doors for about an hour with more than a dozen far-right House Republicans who believe the budget resolution doesn’t require the Senate to cut enough spending.

“We want everybody to have a high degree of comfort about what is happening here,” Johnson said. “And we have a small subset of members who weren’t totally satisfied with the product as it stands. So we’re going to talk about maybe going to conference with the Senate, or adding an amendment. But we’re going to make that decision. We are going to continue to move forward. This is all positive.”

The House and Senate are far from agreement on how much to reduce federal spending later this year when they write the reconciliation bill.

The House instructions call on numerous committees to cut spending by at least $1.5 trillion, with more than half of that deficit savings coming from the committee that oversees Medicaid. Those instructions would likely lead to hundreds of billions in federal funding being pulled from the program, though Republicans insisted during floor debate they were only looking to address waste, fraud and abuse.

The Senate has given itself a floor of $4 billion in spending cuts, which could lead to substantial deficit increases. The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget released analysis last week, showing the reconciliation package could bolster deficits by up to $5.8 trillion during the next decade.

Trump lobbying, last-minute drama

House debate, which took place before the vote was delayed, followed days of lobbying by House GOP leaders and President Donald Trump, who urged holdouts to adopt the budget resolution during a campaign fundraising dinner Tuesday evening.

“I think we are there,” Trump said. “But just in case there are a couple of Republicans out there, you just got to get there, close your eyes and get there. It’s a phenomenal bill. Stop grandstanding, just stop grandstanding.”

That didn’t sway everyone, however, leading Speaker Johnson to pull about a dozen of the far-right members off the floor Wednesday evening just as the House was supposed to move on to the budget vote.

The rest of the chamber’s lawmakers waited on the floor for more than an hour as the group huddled nearby.

Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris, R-Md., Pennsylvania Rep. Scott Perry, South Carolina Rep. Ralph Norman, Tennessee Rep. Tim Burchett and Texas Rep. Chip Roy were among the members to get summoned off the floor by Johnson.

Scalise pleads to ‘get America back on track’

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., called on Republicans to adopt the budget resolution earlier in the day during floor debate, saying it “just opens the door to” using the complex budget reconciliation process to enact their agenda.

“The process where 11 of our committees here in the House will go to work to start making improvements in so many areas to get America back on track,” Scalise said. “And ultimately, that’s why we all come here. We come here to solve big problems. We deal with small issues too. But every now and then — and it’s not often — you deal with a big issue that can actually improve the lives of families all across this country.”

Budget Committee ranking member Rep. Brendan Boyle, D-Pa., said members of his party wouldn’t allow the parts of the 2017 tax law that benefit the middle class to expire at the end of the year, rejecting claims from GOP lawmakers.

“If you’re a middle-class American, if you are in the 99%, you will not see your taxes go up next year,” Boyle said. “There is no question about that. What is at issue is the tax cuts for multimillionaires, billionaires and big corporations.”

Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Lloyd Smucker said he couldn’t vote to approve the budget resolution since the Senate’s instructions for spending cuts were “not acceptable.”

“To me, it’s important we have the guardrails in the initial resolution,” Smucker said, before encouraging House leaders to amend the budget resolution to increase the amount of spending cuts the Senate must implement.

“I can’t vote on this bill as it is, but there’s a path forward here and that is very, very important,” Smucker said.

Roy of Texas also spoke out against the budget resolution, saying the Senate’s instructions didn’t go far enough to reduce deficits.

“The Senate sent over a joke. And we’re going to capitulate to the Senate, knowing full well that the Senate instructions carry the day,” Roy said. “And we’re going to be sitting there in a reconciliation debate, where we’re going to end up on the short end of the stick. But worse, the American people are going to end up on the short end of the stick because it absolutely increases deficits. No one can deny it.”

Roy added that members of Congress should “pass a math test” because the numbers in the budget resolution didn’t add up.

Lengthy struggle

Republican leaders have struggled for months to get the vast majority of their members on board with the outline.

Even if the House finally approves the resolution, Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., have months of work ahead of them as committees begin writing and debating their sections of the reconciliation package.

The budget resolution tasks 11 House committees and 10 Senate panels with meeting vague budget targets. Committees either have a minimum amount of spending to cut or a maximum amount of deficits they can create.

The House and Senate are relatively aligned on some of those targets, though they are far apart on spending cuts and potentially tax policy.

In the House, the Agriculture Committee needs to slice at least $230 billion; Education and Workforce must reduce spending by a minimum of $330 billion; Energy and Commerce needs to cut no less than $880 billion; Financial Services must find at least $1 billion in savings; Natural Resources has a minimum of $1 billion; Oversight and Government Reform has a floor of $50 billion; and the Transportation Committee needs to reduce deficits by $10 billion or more.

The Energy and Commerce Committee’s instructions have been a central issue for Democrats, and many centrist Republicans, who are concerned that Medicaid, the state-federal health program for lower-income people, will be a target for hundreds of billions in cuts.

Four Senate committees — Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry; Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs; Energy and Natural Resources; and Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, or HELP — must each find at least $1 billion in spending cuts over the 10-year budget window.

House committees that can increase the federal deficit include the Armed Services Committee with a cap of $100 billion in new spending, Homeland Security with a $90 billion ceiling for new funding for programs it oversees, Judiciary with a maximum of $110 billion and Ways and Means, which can increase deficits up to $4.5 trillion for tax cuts.

Senate committees also got instructions for increasing the deficit, which will allow them to spend up to the dollar amount outlined in the budget resolution. Those committees include Armed Services at $150 billion; Commerce, Science and Transportation with $20 billion; Environment and Public Works at $1 billion; Finance with $1.5 trillion in new deficits, likely for tax cuts; Homeland Security at $175 billion and Judiciary with $175 billion.

House instructions call for the reconciliation package to raise the debt limit by $4 trillion while the Senate’s plans say lawmakers can raise it by up to $5 trillion.

Slim majority

Assuming the House adopts the budget resolution, GOP leaders will need to keep nearly all of their members supportive during the next couple months as those numbers turn into tangible policy proposals.

House Republican leaders can only lose three members on party-line votes, given their paper-thin 220-lawmaker majority.

The same number of GOP senators can vote against the final reconciliation package as long as Vice President J.D. Vance casts the tie-breaking vote.

Any more Republicans opposing the package would prevent it from becoming law. 

Pro-Trump protesters gather on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Brent Stirton/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Capitol Police chief testified Tuesday that President Donald Trump’s decision to pardon people convicted of assaulting police officers on Jan. 6, 2021, had negative repercussions on morale within the department and for police across the country.

“I think there was an impact, not only to the Capitol Police, but an impact nationwide when you see folks that are pardoned — and I’m really referring to the ones that were convicted of assaulting police officers,” J. Thomas Manger said during a hearing on the department’s budget request.

“I think that’s what bothered most cops and it did certainly have an impact on the USCP,” Manger added. “We’ve got so much change that officers are experiencing over the last four years, so I’m trying to keep them focused on moving forward. But it certainly did have a negative impact. For cops all over this country, you wonder when you put your life on the line every day, and does it matter?”

On Trump’s first day in office, he pardoned nearly 1,500 people who were convicted of crimes related to attacking the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, while members of Congress moved through the process to certify President Joe Biden’s win of the Electoral College vote.

Many of those people went to the Capitol after attending a rally near the White House where Trump repeated false claims about winning the 2020 presidential election, despite numerous failed court cases and no evidence of widespread voter fraud.

Manger testified during the House Appropriations Legislative Branch Subcommittee hearing that the department has made numerous improvements since the attacks, but that its nearly $1 billion budget request is necessary to hire more officers and continue updating equipment.

“I recognize that there are other police departments of a similar size whose budget is not as large as ours. But we’re not an ordinary law enforcement agency,” Manger said. “The USCP is unlike any traditional police department. In fact, our mission incorporates elements similar to the FBI, U.S. Secret Service and the federal protective service.”

Manger said that in the four years since the Jan. 6 attack, USCP has made substantial changes to how it operates and that many of its “mission requirements simply did not exist four years ago.”

U.S. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., speaks to reporters as he leaves a news conference following a House Republican Conference meeting at the U.S. Capitol on April 8, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson said Tuesday he’s still planning to hold a floor vote this week to adopt the budget resolution that senators signed off on last weekend, despite opposition from enough Republican lawmakers to block final approval.

Johnson, R-La., said that he and others, including President Donald Trump, are working to address concerns the blueprint directs the Senate to cut a minimum of $4 billion, while the House instructions task several committees with cutting at least $1.5 trillion in spending. Some House Republicans say they don’t want to move ahead because the Senate number is too low.

Both chambers of Congress must adopt the same version of the budget resolution before they can use the complex reconciliation process to extend the 2017 tax cuts, bolster spending on border security and defense by hundreds of billions of dollars, and reduce government spending.

Johnson said during a press conference that a House vote to adopt the budget resolution, which the Senate approved early Saturday morning, just starts off the process. He also said writing the actual reconciliation bill would be “a collaborative process between the House and Senate.”

“You’re going to see the Republican Party in both chambers working together as one team. I know that’s a rare occasion, and people don’t really know what that looks like, but we’re actually going to do it this time,” Johnson said. “The House is not going to participate in an us-versus-them charade. We won’t do it.”

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., told reporters following a closed-door GOP conference meeting on Tuesday morning that the chamber could stay in session this weekend, if leaders cannot get the votes they need lined up during the next few days.

“We’ve got to get it done,” Scalise said. “Failure is not an option.”

The House is set to leave for a two-week break on Thursday.

‘A joke from the Senate’

House Republicans can only lose three votes and still adopt the budget resolution, given their extremely thin 220-seat majority. As of Tuesday, many more than three GOP lawmakers have expressed reservations or said outright they won’t vote to approve the budget resolution.

Texas Rep. Chip Roy said the $4 billion floor in spending cuts in the Senate’s reconciliation instructions “is clearly not sufficient.”

“It’s, frankly, a joke from the Senate. And it’s more of the same swamp stuff that we’ve been dealing with for years, and so nothing’s changed,” Roy said. “So, you know, we have to draw a line in the sand now on a budget, and the Senate’s budget is not there.”

Roy said he “wouldn’t advise” House leaders to bring the budget resolution to the floor for a vote this week and that he “didn’t come here to make deficits go up.”

The House’s reconciliation instructions allow the Ways and Means Committee to increase deficits by up to $4.5 trillion to extend the 2017 tax cuts that were set to expire at the end of this year.

The House’s budget blueprint also gives the Armed Services Committee a cap of $100 billion in new spending, Homeland Security a $90 billion ceiling for new funding for programs it oversees, and the Judiciary Committee a maximum of $110 billion in new spending.

The House tasks several other committees with cutting at least $1.5 trillion over the same time period, including $880 billion in cuts by the panel that oversees major health care programs like Medicare and Medicaid.

Trump weighs in

Tennessee Rep. Tim Burchett said he was undecided, but leaning against voting to approve the budget resolution since it proposed too much spending and not enough cuts.

Burchett said he wasn’t invited to a White House meeting taking place later in the day, but that Trump has his phone number and can call him if he wants to.

South Carolina Rep. Ralph Norman said he wanted to amend the budget resolution to require the Senate to cut the same amount as the House. He also said he wanted Trump to weigh in.

Trump posted on social media Monday evening that the Senate-passed budget had his “Complete and Total Endorsement and Support.”

“There is no better time than now to get this Deal DONE! The House, the Senate, and our Great Administration, are going to work tirelessly on creating “THE ONE, BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL,” an appropriate name if Congress so likes,” Trump wrote. “Everyone is going to be happy with the result. Passage will make, even the subject of World Trade, far easier and better for the U.S.A. THE HOUSE MUST PASS THIS BUDGET RESOLUTION, AND QUICKLY — MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

Senate side

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said later Tuesday he hopes the House will adopt the budget resolution, so both chambers can begin drafting the actual reconciliation package. He also reiterated that GOP lawmakers in his chamber are just as interested in cutting spending as their House colleagues.

“As we get into the reconciliation process, we’re going to be very committed to doing as much as we possibly can on deficit reduction,” Thune said.

Some of the confusion and disagreement, he said, is due to Republicans “speaking slightly different languages because the House and Senate operate in such different ways.”

A view of the National Institutes of Health campus in Bethesda, Maryland, looking south beyond the Stokes Labs (Building 50) and Natcher Building (center) to the reflective façade of the National Library of Medicine (upper right). (Photo by National Institutes of Health)

WASHINGTON — A federal judge has issued a permanent injunction blocking the National Institutes of Health from implementing a policy that would cap the amount of funding research universities and medical schools receive for indirect costs.

The Friday ruling from Judge Angel Kelley of the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts came just hours after Trump administration lawyers asked her to convert the preliminary injunction issued in March to a permanent one.

The move will likely speed up the appeals process.

Kelley wrote in her previous 76-page decision that a preliminary injunction prevented the NIH from inflicting “immediate, devastating, and irreparable” harm on research institutions.

“First, the suspension of ongoing clinical trials and the resulting threats to patients’ lives represents a dire risk of a quintessentially irreparable nature. Second, the threats to non-human, yet still essential, research subjects similarly rings in irreparability,” Kelley wrote, referring to research animals. “Finally, the potential loss of human capital and talent to virtually every Plaintiff poses yet another harm incapable of run-of-the-mill legal relief.”

Kelley added the “Court is hard pressed to think of a loss more irreparable than the loss of a life, let alone the thousands of people who are counting on clinical trials as their last hope.”

The case began in February after the NIH announced it would cap Facilities and Administrative fees for every institution receiving a grant at 15%, a significantly lower threshold than many research universities and medical schools had negotiated over the years.

That led to three lawsuits — Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. National Institutes of Health, Association of American Medical Colleges v. National Institutes of Health and Association of American Universities v. Department of Health & Human Services — all of which are before Kelley.

Facilities and Administrative fees, also referred to as indirect costs, cover expenses that are not associated with one specific research project. They can include building construction or renovations, utility bills, salaries for administrative staff, and dozens of other line items. 

The U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., is pictured on Feb. 25, 2025. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Republicans, in the early morning hours Saturday, approved their budget resolution that will aid the party in maintaining the 2017 tax cuts but also paves the way for them to add nearly $6 trillion to the deficit under an outside analysis.

The 51-48 vote sends the compromise measure to the House, where Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., hopes to adopt the tax-and-spending blueprint within the next week. No Democrats backed the bill and no Democratic amendments were accepted during an overnight marathon voting session.

Maine Sen. Susan Collins and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul were the only two Republicans who voted against the resolution, which needed only a majority vote under the complicated process being used in the Senate.

The lengthy voting session, known as the vote-a-rama, included debate on 28 amendments, with one adopted.

Alaska Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan was the only member of either party to have their change agreed to, following a 51-48 vote. His amendment addressed Medicaid, which has become a flash point in the battle over the budget this year, as well as Medicare.

Sullivan said his proposal would strengthen Medicaid, the state-federal health program for lower-income people that House GOP lawmakers are looking at as one place to cut spending, and Medicare, the health insurance program for seniors and some people with disabilities.

“We should all want to weed out waste, fraud and abuse in Medicaid and Medicare, and we must keep these programs going. We should do both,” Sullivan said.

Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden spoke against the amendment, saying it didn’t clearly define which “vulnerable people” would have their access to Medicare and Medicaid protected.

“By not defining the vulnerable, the Sullivan amendment is code for states to cut benefits or kick people off their coverage altogether,” Wyden said. “To me, the Sullivan amendment basically says if somebody thinks you’re not poor enough, you’re not sick enough, or you’re not disabled enough, we’re not going to be there for you.”

Democrats unsuccessfully offered messaging amendments dealing with everything from Social Security phone service to the minimum wage to contracts with farmers.

‘Start the game’

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said during a floor speech Friday the budget resolution will clear the way for lawmakers to extend the 2017 tax cuts permanently, bolster federal spending on border security and defense, rewrite energy policy and cut spending.

“The resolution opens up that process that will be done by the House and Senate authorizing committees,” Graham said. “So this doesn’t do anything other than start the game and it’s time this game started.”

Wyden, ranking member on the Senate Finance Committee, vehemently opposed the budget resolution, saying the tax cuts it sets up would predominantly help the wealthy.

Wyden argued the tariffs that President Donald Trump has instituted would negate any potential positive impacts of the upcoming GOP tax cuts. The tariffs sent markets diving on Friday for a second day in a row.

“People following along at home are going to hear a lot of sweet-sounding promises from Republicans about what they’re trying to accomplish,” Wyden said. “They claim their tax bill is just all unicorns and rainbows. They’ll say everybody is going to benefit from a tax cut and typical families will get the help they need. They’ll promise rising wages and a booming economy.

“It’s just not true. The reality is, unless you’re way out at the upper end of the income scale, any benefit you get from this Republican bill is going to get blown out of the water as the Trump tariffs continue to hike inflation.”

Paul said during floor debate that he was “concerned” about how his colleagues had written the measure.

“What worries me is that so many things in Washington are smoke and mirrors,” Paul said. “On the one hand, it appears as if all of this great savings is happening. But on the other hand, the resolution before us will increase the debt by $5 trillion.”

Paul offered an amendment that would have changed those instructions to set up a three-month debt limit extension, but it was not agreed to following a vote of 5-94.

Framework for tax hikes and policy bill

Congress’ budget isn’t a bill but a concurrent resolution, meaning it never goes to the president for a signature. Its various provisions take effect once both chambers vote to adopt the same version.

The budget resolution also doesn’t include any real money, just plans for the next decade.

But it does lay the groundwork for the GOP to use the complex reconciliation process to extend the 2017 tax law, much of which was set to expire at the end of this year.

Republicans plan to use that reconciliation bill to boost spending on border security and defense by hundreds of billions of dollars and make changes to energy policy.

The budget resolution also includes instructions to raise the debt limit by between $4 and $5 trillion later this year.

The reconciliation instructions give a dozen House committees and 10 Senate committees targets for how much they can increase the deficit or how much they need to cut spending when they draft their pieces of the package.

All of those panels are supposed to send their bills to the Budget committees before May 9, so they can be bundled together in one package and sent to the floor.

The House GOP set a minimum of $1.5 trillion in spending cuts, while Republicans in the Senate set a floor of $4 billion in funding reductions. Those vast differences foreshadow an internal GOP struggle to achieve a final deal.

Nearly $6 trillion deficit increase

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office will ultimately calculate the deficit impact of the reconciliation bill once it’s written, but several outside organizations have said they disagree with how Republicans are moving forward. 

The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget released an analysis Friday showing the reconciliation bill would increase deficits during the next decade by nearly $6 trillion.

“A $5.8 trillion deficit-increasing bill would be unprecedented,” CRFB’s analysis states. “It would add 14 times as much to the deficit than the bipartisan infrastructure law ($400 billion), more than three times as much as American Rescue Plan ($1.8 trillion), three times the 2020 CARES Act ($1.7 trillion), and nearly four times the original score of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act ($1.5 trillion). In fact, it would add more to the deficit than all four of these major laws combined.”

Sharon Parrott, president of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a left-leaning think tank, wrote in a statement “the tax cuts called for in the budget plan are so expensive that deficits will rise substantially, raising economic risks associated with higher debt in service to expensive tax cuts skewed to the wealthy.”

“Policymakers need to course-correct and remember their campaign pledges to help ease families’ strained budgets, not contort the budget to the desires of the very wealthy,” Parrott wrote. “That would mean crafting a budget bill that doesn’t raise families’ health and grocery costs but instead invests in making health care more affordable and expands the Child Tax Credit to support families who face challenges affording the basics. These investments and lower deficits can be achieved by a sounder tax policy that requires corporations and the wealthy — who benefit enormously from public investments — to pay their fair share.”

An analysis from The Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, called the GOP budget resolution a “fiscal train wreck.”

Romina Boccia, director of budget and entitlement policy, and Dominik Lett, a budget and entitlement policy analyst, wrote that Republicans need to start over.

“This budget isn’t just a missed opportunity; it actively worsens our nation’s debt trajectory,” they wrote. “The resolution abandons the House’s concrete spending reductions desperately needed in today’s high-debt environment, sets a dangerous precedent by adopting a so-called current policy baseline that hides the very real deficit impact of extending tax cuts, and adds hundreds of billions in new deficit spending. The Senate should go back to the drawing b

Dr. Mehmet Oz speaks during a confirmation hearing with the Senate Finance Committee in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on March 14, 2025, in Washington, D.C. Oz has been confirmed as President Donald Trump’s nominee to be administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate on Thursday confirmed former television personality and onetime Pennsylvania political candidate Mehmet Oz as director of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

The 53-45 party-line vote places Oz at the helm of the federal agency responsible for administering health care programs relied on by 1 in 4 Americans, including children, seniors and lower-income people.

His confirmation comes as Republicans in Congress look to Medicaid, a state-federal partnership that covers medical expenses for some low-income and older Americans, as a source for hundreds of billions in spending cuts to help pay for extending the 2017 GOP tax law.

Oz testified during his confirmation hearing in mid-March that there are several “painful truths” confronting federal programs within CMS.

“Health care expenditures are growing 2 to 3% faster than our economy; not sustainable. The Medicare trust fund will be insolvent within a decade, that’s the 2.9% taken out of your paycheck,” Oz said. “Medicaid is the number one expense item in most states, consuming 30% of those state budgets, and that’s crowding out essential services like schools and public safety that many of you spent your careers trying to develop. Our health care cost per person in this country is twice that of other developed nations.”

Oz said that chronic disease, which he argued is “linked to poor lifestyle choices,” drives much of the federal spending on health care. He singled out obesity as a central issue.

Oz testified he intended to “empower beneficiaries with better tools and more transparency,” “incentivize health care providers to optimize care with real-time information” in part by using artificial intelligence to “liberate doctors and nurses from paperwork,” and modernize efforts that track waste, fraud and abuse.

‘Ludicrous wellness grifting’

Finance Committee ranking member Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said during the hearing that Oz’s comments during a failed Senate campaign about privatizing Medicare were unacceptable.

Wyden also criticized Oz for promoting products on this daytime television show that had no scientific research supporting their claims of improving people’s health or preventing disease.  

“Dr. Oz has used his program to promote some of the most ludicrous wellness grifting that I’ve heard about to date,” Wyden said.

Idaho Republican Sen. Mike Crapo, chairman of the committee, said during a floor speech Thursday that Oz was well qualified to run CMS.

“At his hearing, Dr. Oz spoke strongly about his desire to modernize the CMS and encourage a healthy lifestyle for all Americans,” Crapo said. “His vision for treating the underlying causes of chronic disease and equipping providers with innovative technologies to serve patients will also be a much- needed sea change at CMS.”

CMS scope

The agency manages several federal health programs, including Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program and the health insurance marketplaces established by the Affordable Care Act.

The agency spent more than $1.5 trillion during the last full fiscal year, about 22% of all federal spending.

The more than 6,000 people who work at CMS as well as contractors “process over one billion Medicare claims annually, monitor quality of care, provide the states with matching funds for Medicaid benefits, and develop policies and procedures designed to give the best possible service to beneficiaries,” according to the latest financial report.

CMS is one of many agencies housed in the Department of Health and Human Services that is subject to restructuring plans from Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Oz background

Oz received his undergraduate degree from Harvard University before earning a joint M.D. and MBA from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and Wharton Business School.

He starred in the daytime show “Dr. Oz,” which ran from 2009 until 2022.

He won the Republican primary in the 2022 Pennsylvania U.S. Senate race but was defeated during the general election by Democratic Sen. John Fetterman.

When President Donald Trump announced in November he intended to nominate Oz to lead CMS, he wrote that Oz would “cut waste and fraud within our Country’s most expensive Government Agency, which is a third of our Nation’s Healthcare spend, and a quarter of our entire National Budget.”

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth speaks during his Senate Armed Services Committee confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill on Jan. 14, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The Defense Department’s Office of the Inspector General announced Thursday it has opened an investigation into Secretary Pete Hegseth’s highly criticized use of the Signal messaging app to communicate about plans to bomb Yemen.

The evaluation stems from a letter the chairman and ranking member of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, Republican Roger Wicker of Mississippi and Democrat Jack Reed of Rhode Island, sent last week, asking the watchdog agency to look into the matter. 

Acting Defense Department Inspector General Steven A. Stebbins wrote in a memo announcing the investigation that the Inspector General Act of 1978 “authorizes us to have access to personnel and materials as we determine necessary to perform our oversight in a timely manner.”

The purpose of the evaluation, he wrote, “is to determine the extent to which the Secretary of Defense and other DoD personnel complied with DoD policies and procedures for the use of a commercial messaging application for official business. Additionally, we will review compliance with classification and records retention requirements.”

The investigation will take place in Washington, D.C., as well as U.S. Central Command Headquarters in Tampa, Florida.

Concerns about the use of Signal, an encrypted messaging app available commercially, began after The Atlantic published an article detailing how its editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, was inadvertently added to a group chat exchanging messages about national security plans. The ensuing controversy has been dubbed “Signalgate.”

Vice President J.D. Vance, Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, National Security Advisor Michael Waltz and others were all in the group.

They were discussing plans for U.S. troops to bomb Houthi rebels in Yemen, which has raised significant concerns about how senior Trump administration officials are communicating and handling classified information. 

The U.S. Capitol. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Republicans released an updated budget resolution Wednesday that sets a May 9 deadline for more than a dozen committees to approve their slice of the massive package that will permanently extend the GOP tax cuts and make significant reductions in spending.

The 70-page budget resolution, however, includes different guidelines for the House and Senate committees, allowing GOP leaders to sidestep their differences on policy for the moment, but not the long haul.

The budget resolution also sets the stage for the House to raise the debt limit by $4 trillion and the Senate to lift it by not more than $5 trillion in the reconciliation package.

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., wrote in a statement that final approval of the budget resolution would “unlock the ability for the appropriate Senate committees to fully fund our border needs for four years, provide much-needed financial relief to our military at a time of great danger, make the 2017 tax cuts permanent to energize the economy, and do what has been promised for decades: go through every line item of the budget to cut wasteful and unnecessary spending — hopefully by the trillions.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., released a statement of his own, saying the “parliamentarian has reviewed the Budget Committee’s substitute amendment and deemed it appropriate for consideration under the Budget Act.”

“It is now time for the Senate to move forward with this budget resolution in order to further advance our shared Republican agenda in Congress,” Thune wrote.

The Senate parliamentarian is the nonpartisan scorekeeper who ensures everything included in a reconciliation bill meets the chamber’s strict rules.

Here comes the vote-a-rama

The complicated reconciliation process will allow the GOP to approve its core policy goals without needing support from Democrats in the Senate, where 60 votes are usually needed to advance legislation. Reconciliation does, however, come with several hoops to jump through.

One of those hurdles will come later this week when the Senate endures the dreaded vote-a-rama; a marathon amendment voting session that typically lasts overnight. After that, senators will be able to send the budget resolution to the House for final approval.

The tax-and-spending blueprint released Wednesday will send a dozen House committees instructions on how to draft their pieces of the package, while 10 Senate committees will write bills.

Typically, the committee instructions, which just include a budget target, are similar, if not identical, for the House and Senate. But differences of opinion between Republican leaders about how much to cut federal spending, as well as other disagreements, led to differing instructions.

The House has a significantly higher threshold for cutting government spending than the Senate.

The Agriculture Committee needs to slice at least $230 billion; Education and Workforce must reduce spending by a minimum of $330 billion; Energy and Commerce needs to cut no less than $880 billion; Financial Services must find at least $1 billion in savings; Natural Resources has a minimum of $1 billion; Oversight and Government Reform has a floor of $50 billion; and the Transportation Committee needs to reduce deficits by $10 billion or more.

House committees that can increase the federal deficit include the Armed Services Committee with a cap of $100 billion in new spending, Homeland Security with a $90 billion ceiling for new funding for programs it oversees, Judiciary with a maximum of $110 billion and Ways and Means, which can increase deficits up to $4.5 trillion for tax cuts.

Spending cuts in Senate

Senators set a much lower bar for themselves in terms of spending cuts, though the way the reconciliation instructions are written, as a floor and not a ceiling, will give leeway for those committees to cut much more.

Four Senate committees — Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry; Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs; Energy and Natural Resources; and Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, or HELP — must each find at least $1 billion in spending cuts over the 10-year budget window.

Senate committees also got instructions for increasing the deficit, which will allow them to spend up to the dollar amount outlined in the budget resolution. Those committees include Armed Services at $150 billion; Commerce, Science and Transportation with $20 billion; Environment and Public Works at $1 billion; Finance with $1.5 trillion in new deficits, likely for tax cuts; Homeland Security at $175 billion and Judiciary with $175 billion.

Once the House and Senate both vote to adopt the same budget resolution, the committees can formally begin drafting and marking up their bills.

Those bills, according to the instructions, must be sent to the Budget committees before May 9. That panel will then bundle all of the various pieces together into one reconciliation package and send it to the floor.

The House and Senate must vote to approve the same reconciliation package before it can go to President Donald Trump for his signature and become law.

Republicans have a paper-thin majority in the House and will need to ensure that lawmakers from across the party support all of the elements going into the reconciliation package. Even a few defectors in that chamber could block the bill from moving forward.

Senate GOP leaders have a bit more wiggle room, but cannot lose more than three of their members and pass a reconciliation bill. 

Frank Bisignano, Social Security commissioner nominee, at his Senate Finance Committee confirmation hearing on March 25, 2025. (Senate webcast)

WASHINGTON — A Senate panel voted Wednesday to send Frank Bisignano’s nomination as Social Security commissioner to the floor, despite allegations from Democrats that he was dishonest in his testimony before the committee about his relationship with Elon Musk’s DOGE cost-cutting operation.

The 14-13 party-line vote took place one day later than originally scheduled in an ornate room just steps from the Senate floor, instead of the committee hearing room.

Finance Committee Chairman Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, said Tuesday morning that he supported Bisignano’s commitment to improve customer service and reduce improper payments.

Crapo also committed to looking into an anonymous whistleblower letter that was sent to the committee’s Democrats, though he declined to delay the panel’s vote until after that process concluded.

“Even though the timing of the anonymous letter suggests a political effort to delay the committee vote on this nominee, my staff have told Sen. Wyden’s staff — and we have discussed this just now — we are open to meeting with the author of the letter and keeping the individual anonymous,” Crapo said. “However, any information provided by the individual must be thoroughly vetted, including allowing the nominee the opportunity to respond.”

Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden, ranking member on the panel, urged Crapo to delay the vote until after a committee investigation, alleging Bisignano was untruthful during his testimony.  

“This nominee lied multiple times to every member of this committee, including the bipartisan Finance staff and the nominee’s actions and communications with DOGE remain very much at the heart of my objection here,” Wyden said. “My office received an account from a whistleblower about the ways the nominee was deeply involved in and aware of DOGE’s activities at the agency.”

Wyden said that Bisignano, though not confirmed and with no official role yet at the agency, intervened at the Social Security Administration to ensure that staff from U.S. DOGE Services had “immediate access to Social Security systems.” DOGE, or Department of Government Efficiency, is a temporary Trump administration entity aimed at slashing the federal workforce and spending.

Wyden also argued that Bisignano’s history in corporate America wasn’t a good fit for running the Social Security Administration, saying he “has made a career of swooping in, firing workers, selling off pieces of the company and merging with a competitor.”

“These practices may be good for shareholders, but they hurt American families,” Wyden said. “So we, Senate Democrats, are not going to stand by idly while Trump’s cronies take a sledgehammer to Social Security and deprive seniors of their earned benefits under the false manner of fighting fraud.”

Bisignano hearing

Bisignano, of New Jersey, testified before the committee for nearly three hours in late March, fielding questions on several issues, including overpayments and customer service.

He pledged to reduce the 1% overpayment rate significantly and said he could bring down the average wait time for customer service phone calls from about 20 minutes to less than one minute.

“If you look at the Social Security website, and you look at the statistics, taking 20-plus minutes to answer the phone is not really acceptable,” Bisignano said during his confirmation hearing. “And that’s the reason why only 46% of the phone calls get answered, because people get discouraged and hang up.”

Bisignano promised senators he would ensure Americans’ personal information would be kept secure.

If confirmed by the full Senate, Bisignano testified he would “ensure that every beneficiary receives their payments on time, that disability claims are processed in the manner they should be.”

“So my first actions are going to be to get organized around delivering the services,” Bisignano said. “And I’ve only been given one order, which is to run the agency in the right fashion.”

He also rejected the possibility of privatizing Social Security.

“I’ve never thought about privatizing. It’s not a word that anybody’s ever talked to me about,” Bisignano said. “And I don’t see this institution as anything other than a government agency that gets run to the benefit of the American public.”

Bisignano works as chairman of the board and chief executive officer at Fiserv, Inc., which “enables money movement for thousands of financial institutions and millions of people and businesses,” according to its website. The company is based in Wisconsin.

He previously worked as co-chief operating officer and chief executive officer of Mortgage Banking at JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Demonstrators protest outside the KI Convention Center before the start of a town hall meeting with Elon Musk on March 30, 2025 in Green Bay, Wisconsin. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Democrats and Republicans both claimed victory and the support of voters nationwide following closely watched elections on Tuesday in Wisconsin and two Florida congressional districts.

Dane County Judge Susan Crawford securing a seat on Wisconsin’s highest court over a challenger backed by billionaire Elon Musk was broadly cheered by Democrats as a clear sign voters have rejected GOP policies just months after that party secured control of Congress and the White House.

Republicans, meanwhile, pointed to their candidates’ wins in special elections in two Florida U.S. House seats as proof Americans back the party’s policy goals and leaders.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said during a floor speech Wednesday the Wisconsin Supreme Court results were a signal from the American people that they are not happy with how President Donald Trump and other Republicans are running the country.

“Yesterday was a sign Democrats’ message is resonating,” Schumer said. “When Democrats shine a light on the fact that Republicans are taking vital programs away from the middle class simply to cut taxes for the ultrarich, the public doesn’t like it. When we shine a light on Republican attacks on Medicaid, on Social Security, on veterans’ health care, simply to cut taxes for the rich, Americans listen and they’re aghast of what they see.

“That is one of the main reasons that the results in Wisconsin came in as resoundingly as they did.”

Schumer didn’t mention Republicans winning two U.S. House special elections in Florida.

Ticket splitting in Wisconsin

Wisconsin voters have a history of ticket splitting, including during November’s presidential election, when the state favored Trump, but also voted to send Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin back to Washington.

Trump won the state by less than 30,000 votes out of more than 3.3 million cast. Baldwin secured another six-year term by roughly the same margin.

Crawford received 55% of the vote in this election, winning by about 238,000 votes out of nearly 2.4 million votes cast, according to data from The Associated Press.

GOP Sen. Rick Scott of Florida told reporters Tuesday evening shortly after the results came in that he’s not reading too much into the narrower margin of victory for the two newly elected Republicans in his home state and he doesn’t believe it tells lawmakers anything about what might happen in the 2026 midterm elections.

“Remember, they’re special elections. It’s hard, you know … when there’s a presidential race, everybody knows to vote, even a governor’s race,” Scott said inside the U.S. Capitol. “But when there’s a special election, it’s hard for people to go out and vote.”

Former Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis defeated the Democratic candidate in the state’s 1st Congressional District after receiving 56.9% of the vote, according to the Division of Elections’ unofficial results. The GOP lawmaker who won that district in November did so with 66% of the vote.

In the 6th Congressional District, former state Sen. Randy Fine secured election with 56.6% of the vote, a smaller margin of victory than the 66.5% the former Republican congressman who occupied the seat received in November.

Trump focuses on Florida

Trump hailed the GOP wins in Florida in a social media post, but didn’t mention Wisconsin, where special government employee and close political ally Musk campaigned late last month.

“BOTH FLORIDA HOUSE SEATS HAVE BEEN WON, BIG, BY THE REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE,” Trump wrote. “THE TRUMP ENDORSEMENT, AS ALWAYS, PROVED FAR GREATER THAN THE DEMOCRATS FORCES OF EVIL. CONGRATULATIONS TO AMERICA!!!”

DNC Chair Ken Martin wrote in a statement the Wisconsin Supreme Court election results show voters in the state “squarely rejected the influence of Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and billionaire special interests.”

“Democrats are overperforming, winning races, and building momentum,” Martin wrote. “We’re working hard to continue the trend in the Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey elections this year and then — with the people on our side — to take back the House in 2026.”

Martin, similar to Schumer, didn’t mention the Florida congressional district races won by GOP politicians.

National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman Mike Marinella released a statement pointing to Florida as solid evidence the party is on the right track.

“Florida’s resounding Republican victories send a clear message: Americans are fired up to elect leaders who will fight for President Trump’s agenda and reject the Democrats’ failed policies,” Marinella wrote. “While Democrats set their cash ablaze, House Republicans will keep hammering them for being out of touch — and we’ll crush them again in 2026.”

Jeffries targets 60 districts

U.S. House Democrats’ campaign arm, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, didn’t release any statements on the Florida election results. But House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said during a press conference Wednesday that the Democratic candidates in the Sunshine State “dramatically overperformed” how Trump did in those areas in November.

“There are 60 House Republicans who hold districts right now that Donald Trump won by 15 points or less in November. Every single one of those Republicans should be concerned,” Jeffries said. “The American people have rejected their extreme brand and their do-nothing agenda and they’re going to be held accountable next November.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune speaks to reporters following a weekly Republican policy luncheon at the U.S. Capitol on Feb. 19, 2025. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Republicans hope to approve a budget resolution this week that would clear the way for Congress to enact an extension of expiring tax law as well as sweeping cuts to federal spending later this year.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said Tuesday the chamber will likely vote on the House-passed budget resolution later this week, after completing the vote-a-rama, where lawmakers vote on dozens of amendments, typically into the early morning hours.

“Republicans continue to have very productive conversations on how to achieve our agenda and working with President Trump on making sure that we are rebuilding our military, unleashing American energy dominance, making sure there isn’t a four-and-a-half trillion tax increase on the American people at the end of this year and obviously securing our border,” Thune said.

The House and Senate must vote to adopt the same budget resolution with matching instructions before they can use the complicated reconciliation process to move legislation through Congress on their own. The process allows the majority party to avoid the Senate filibuster that requires 60 votes for most legislation.

One ‘big, beautiful bill’

GOP lawmakers in the two chambers have been at odds for months over whether to move their core legislative goals in two bills or one package.

The Senate approved a budget resolution in mid-February that would have addressed the issue in two bills, before the House voted later that month to move forward with a different budget resolution.

The final, adopted budget resolution would set up Republicans to hold floor votes on one “big, beautiful bill,” as President Donald Trump has described it, later this year, if GOP leaders can keep nearly all of their members on board with the final product.

Republicans hold unified control of Congress and the White House, but voters didn’t give the party especially wide margins.

The GOP holds 218 seats in the 435-member House amid absences, though it could pick up two more members following special elections in Florida on Tuesday. Republicans hold 53 seats in the Senate.

Any changes to tax law, energy policy or spending cuts will need support from nearly every GOP lawmaker in Congress, including centrists, who barely won election in swing districts, and far-right members, who are more likely to lose to a primary challenger claiming they’re not conservative enough.

The House-passed resolution includes reconciliation instructions that would allow Congress later this year to extend the 2017 tax cuts and a range of other GOP policy priorities that could not survive the 60-vote threshold.

Democratic amendments

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Tuesday that Democrats plan to put up amendments during budget debate that will showcase how the eventual bill could impact Americans.

“We have had many good discussions, including today. And you are going to find us focused relentlessly on what … Donald Trump, Elon Musk and the Republican Senate and House are doing to the American people,” Schumer said. “They’re taking away benefits that they desperately need.”

The Senate adopted just two amendments during its last vote-a-rama in February, one from Alaska Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan and one from Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee.

Democrats put forward numerous amendments but were unable to get any adopted. 

Colorado Democratic Rep. Brittany Pettersen speaks on the U.S. House floor on Tuesday, April 1, 2025, while holding her newborn. (Screenshot from U.S. House Clerk livestream.)

This story was updated at 3:02 p.m. EDT.

WASHINGTON — U.S. House Republican leaders on Tuesday were unable to use a procedural maneuver to block a Florida Republican and a Colorado Democrat from bringing a resolution to the floor that would allow expecting mothers and new parents to vote by proxy.

GOP leaders tried to block their discharge petition from moving forward by putting language in a rule that would have set up House floor debate on separate pieces of legislation.

That provision and the rule were blocked following a 206-222 vote, with nine Republicans voting to buck party leaders. GOP leaders opted to cancel votes for the rest of the week afterward.

“People have emotional reasons for doing what they’re doing,” Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters after the failed vote. “But we’re going to keep governing. This is a small, razor-thin majority and we have to build consensus on everything. I wish they had not taken this course, but we’re not shaken by this.”

The discharge petition from Florida GOP Rep. Anna Paulina Luna and Colorado Democratic Rep. Brittany Pettersen received signatures from 218 lawmakers, indicating it has the support needed to change the House’s rules when a vote is held.

Florida Rep. Byron Donalds, Georgia Rep. Richard McCormick, New Jersey Rep. Jeff Van Drew, New York Rep. Michael Lawler, Ohio Reps. Michael Rulli and David Joyce, Pennsylvania Rep. Daniel Meuser, Tennessee Reps. Tim Burchett and Andy Ogles and Texas Reps. Dan Crenshaw and Wesley Hunt were the Republicans who signed the discharge petition.

A newborn on the House floor

Pettersen, holding her newborn in her arms, urged House lawmakers to ensure that women who cannot travel to the Capitol due to their pregnancies and new parents can still represent their constituents.

“When I was pregnant, I couldn’t fly towards the end of my due date because it was unsafe for Sam, and you’re unable to board a plane,” Pettersen said during floor debate. “I was unable to actually have my vote represented here and my constituents represented.”

“After giving birth I was faced with an impossible decision: Sam was four weeks old and for all of the parents here we know that when we have newborns it’s when they’re the most vulnerable in their life, it’s when they need 24-7 care, when taking them even to a grocery store is scary because you’re worried about exposure to germs and them getting sick — let alone taking them to an airport, on a plane and coming across the country to make sure you’re able to vote and represent your constituents.”

Pettersen said she was “terrified that no matter what choice” she made about whether to vote in-person, she would have “deep regrets.”

“So Sam and I made the trip out and this is our third time coming to the floor for a vote,” she said. 

Pettersen said it was “unfathomable that in 2025” Congress had not modernized to have basic parental leave and said the institution has “a long ways to go to make this place accessible for young families like mine.”

Luna said she had spent years trying to convince Republican leaders to allow new parents to vote by proxy. But after exhausting all of her options, worked with her colleagues to gather signatures for a discharge petition.

“Now, leadership, because of the fact they don’t like that I was successful at this, is trying to change the rules,” Luna said, calling GOP leaders’ choice “fundamentally dangerous.”

‘A new laptop class in America’

Massachusetts Democratic Rep. Jim McGovern, ranking member on the Rules Committee, said Republican leadership was “trying to overturn the Democratic process of majority rule.”

“When 218 of us sign a petition, the House rules say it can be brought up for a vote,” McGovern said. “But a backdoor provision slipped into this rule is being used to shut down that process — an unprecedented step. Literally, it has never been done before in the history of the House.”

House Rules Chairwoman Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., opposed moving forward with the discharge petition and a floor vote on proxy voting.

“I know there’s a new laptop class in America that seems to operate increasingly in a virtual space, but that’s simply not a fact of life for most American workers and I believe Congress should live by that standard,” Foxx said.

Members of Congress, including dozens of Republicans, voted by proxy during the coronavirus pandemic.

Speaker Johnson has also allowed discharge petitions to move forward before. Just last year Congress cleared a bill making changes to Social Security benefits for some Americans after members from both political parties signed a discharge petition.

Tuesday’s measure, titled Proxy Voting for New Parents Resolution, would allow House members who just gave birth, or had a spouse give birth, to designate another lawmaker to vote on their behalf for 12 weeks.

The resolution would also allow House lawmakers to vote by proxy before giving birth if their health care providers advised the “pregnancy presents a serious medical condition or that she is unable to travel safely.” 

The legislation would not affect the Senate. Generally, each chamber of Congress sets its own rules and does not try to tell the other chamber how to operate.

Luna quits Freedom Caucus

Luna left the far-right Freedom Caucus on Monday over the group’s efforts to block her discharge petition from moving forward, writing in a two-page letter that “the mutual respect that has guided our caucus” for years was “shattered last week.”

“This was a modest, family-centered proposal,” Luna wrote. “Yet, a small group among us threatened the Speaker, vowing to halt floor proceedings indefinitely — regardless of the legislation at stake, including President Trump’s agenda — unless he altered the rules to block my discharge petition.”

Luna rebuked several of the Freedom Caucus members, without naming names. She said their choice to try to block the discharge petition from moving forward by embedding language in a rule that set up debate on a separate bill was duplicitous.

“This tactic was not just a betrayal of trust; it was a descent into the very behavior we have long condemned — a practice that we, as a group, have repeatedly criticized leadership for allowing,” Luna wrote. “To those involved, I ask: Why? Why abandon the principles we’ve championed and resort to such conduct?

“The irony in all of this is that I have never voted by proxy, yet one of our own on the Rules Committee that is so adamantly opposed has done so over 30 times.”

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to reporters in the Oval Office of the White House on Feb. 3, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Top Democrats in Congress are asking the Government Accountability Office to open an investigation into whether the Trump administration violated federal law by freezing funding for several programs.

Pennsylvania Rep. Brendan Boyle and Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley, ranking members on the House and Senate Budget committees, wrote in a two-page letter sent Monday to the government watchdog organization that certain actions appear to have violated the Impoundment Control Act.

“Unilaterally impounding funds is illegal, and Donald Trump and Russ Vought are trying to gut the federal government piece by piece,” Merkley wrote in a statement accompanying the letter. “GAO must get to the bottom of this and reiterate to the administration that Congress has the power of the purse, not Trump and Vought.”

The Senate voted along party lines earlier this year to confirm Vought as director of the Office of Management and Budget, which has wide-reaching authority over decisions within the executive branch

A Government Accountability Office spokesperson told States Newsroom the agency is working through its process to determine whether it will launch an investigation based on the letter.

GAO, the spokesperson said, also has ongoing work related to the ICA.

OMB authority

Boyle wrote in a statement that the Constitution gives Congress the authority to determine when and where the federal government spends money.

“The administration’s withholding of critical investments harms American communities that rely on these funds for jobs, economic stability, and essential infrastructure,” Boyle wrote. “Robust congressional oversight, alongside litigation, is vital to protecting the interests of the American people.”

The Impoundment Control Act, enacted in the 1970s, bars presidents from not spending the money that Congress has appropriated. Vought has said repeatedly he believes the law is unconstitutional and that presidents have this authority.

Several lawsuits have been filed over the Trump administration opting not to spend federal money, some of which have blocked the actions from taking effect while the cases proceed through the federal courts. 

The Boyle-Merkley letter alleges the Trump administration has run afoul of the law on several occasions, including on his first day in office when he ordered a pause on foreign development assistance as well as funding in the Inflation Reduction Act and the bipartisan infrastructure law.

The two ask GAO to also look into the Trump administration’s decision to halt military aid to Ukraine for about a week in March, writing they are “concerned this pause may have been an illegal impoundment with negative foreign policy and national security implications.”

“The Constitution grants the President no unilateral authority to withhold funds from obligation,” Boyle and Merkley wrote in the letter. “Instead, Congress has vested the President with strictly circumscribed authority to impound or withhold budget authority only in limited circumstances as expressly provided in the Impoundment Control Act.

“The executive branch may withhold amounts from obligation only if the President transmits a special message to Congress that includes the amount of budget authority proposed for withholding and the reason for the proposal (2 U.S.C. §§ 683–684).”

What can GAO do?

During the first Trump administration, the GAO found the Office of Management and Budget violated the Impoundment Control Act  when it halted assistance to Ukraine.

“Faithful execution of the law does not permit the President to substitute his own policy priorities for those that Congress has enacted into law,” GAO wrote in the report. “OMB withheld funds for a policy reason, which is not permitted under the Impoundment Control Act (ICA). The withholding was not a programmatic delay. Therefore, we conclude that OMB violated the ICA.”

The GAO writes on its website that the ICA “authorizes the head of GAO, known as the Comptroller General, to file a lawsuit if the President illegally impounds funds.”

Comptroller General Gene Dodaro testified before Congress earlier this year that he plans to do just that if the independent agency finds violations of the ICA.

“We’re going to make these decisions as fast as possible,” Dodaro said, according to a news report. “I fully intend to carry out our responsibilities under the Impoundment Control Act expeditiously and thoroughly . . . I’ll do it as quickly as I can, but we need to be careful and thorough, because the next step for us is to go to court ourselves. If we say there’s been impoundment and money isn’t released in a certain period of time, we have to go to court.”

U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., speaks to reporters during a press conference inside the U.S. Capitol on Thursday, March 27, 2025. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — The top Republican and top Democrat on the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee sent the Trump administration a joint letter on Thursday, telling the Office of Management and Budget it’s on thin ice with the panel.

The dispute has to do with how the White House is implementing the stopgap spending law that Congress approved earlier this month, which funds the federal government through the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30.

Chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine, and ranking member Patty Murray, D-Wash, wrote in the two-page letter that the way OMB is approaching a section on emergency designations is in sharp contrast to how other administrations have implemented it.

“This (or substantially similar) language has been used in appropriations legislation for decades, and it has always been interpreted to give the President a binary choice: He must concur with all or none of Congress’s emergency designations,” Collins and Murray wrote. “Just as the President does not have a line-item veto, he does not have the ability to pick and choose which emergency spending to designate.

“This interpretation is consistent with congressional intent and is the most logical and consistent reading of the law.”

The two wrote the Trump administration’s new “piecemeal approach” raises questions about whether emergency funding, including $8 billion in housing assistance, will be available as Congress intended.

Collins and Murray appeared to imply that OMB not correcting course on the emergency designation would strain the working relationship between the Appropriations Committee and the Trump administration.

The two will need to work together in the months ahead to draft the dozen appropriations bills for fiscal year 2026, which is slated to begin Oct. 1.

“We are concerned that sudden changes to OMB’s interpretation of long-standing statutory provisions could be disruptive to the appropriations process and make it more difficult for the Appropriations Committee to work in a collaborative fashion with the Administration to advance priorities on behalf of the American people,” they wrote. “Collaboration will become even more challenging when the Committee is first informed of such developments through the press, rather than notified through official channels, as was the case here.”

An aerial view of the Pentagon on May 12, 2021. (Photo by Air Force Tech. Sgt. Brittany A. Chase/Department of Defense)

WASHINGTON — The chairman and ranking member on the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee sent a letter to the Defense Department inspector general on Thursday asking the independent watchdog to open an investigation into top officials’ use of the Signal chat app to discuss plans for bombing Yemen.

Mississippi Republican Sen. Roger Wicker and Rhode Island Democratic Sen. Jack Reed wrote that the group chat, which somehow inadvertently included Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, warranted further inquiry.

“This chat was alleged to have included classified information pertaining to sensitive military actions in Yemen,” the two wrote in the one-page letter. “If true, this reporting raises questions as to the use of unclassified networks to discuss sensitive and classified information, as well as the sharing of such information with those who do not have proper clearance and need to know.”

They asked the inspector general to include an “assessment of DOD classification and declassification policies and processes and whether these policies and processes were adhered to” as well as a determination of whether anyone “transferred classified information, including operational details, from classified systems to unclassified systems, and if so, how.”

The senators called on the inspector general to figure out if “the policies of the White House, Department of Defense, the intelligence community, and other Departments and agencies represented on the National Security Council on this subject differ.”

The letter requests the inspector general make recommendations to address any issues that might be identified by an investigation.

Signalgate, as it’s become known, began Monday when The Atlantic published excerpts of the group chat that included Vice President J.D. Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, National Security Advisor Michael Waltz and others.

President Donald Trump and numerous White House officials have repeatedly tried to downplay the use of a commercial communications app to discuss plans to bomb Houthi rebels inside Yemen.

Hegseth has said publicly that no classified information was shared in the group chat, but Wicker told reporters on Wednesday that the “information as published recently appears to me to be of such a sensitive nature that, based on my knowledge, I would have wanted to classify it.”

A spokesperson for the Defense Department Inspector General said the office “received the request yesterday and we are reviewing the letter. We have no further comment at this time.”

A federal appeals court on March 27, 2025, denied a request from the Trump administration to overturn a lower court’s preliminary injunction, which has so far blocked the White House budget office from implementing a freeze on grants and loans.  Shown is Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought during a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill on Jan. 15, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court on Wednesday denied a request from the Trump administration to overturn a lower court’s preliminary injunction, which has so far blocked the White House budget office from implementing a freeze on trillions in grants and loans.

The 48-page opinion from the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals’ three-judge panel said the Department of Justice failed to show that the federal government would “be irreparably injured absent a stay,” or that a stay of the lower court’s ruling pending appeal would serve the “public interest.”

The ruling came from Chief Judge David Barron, Judge Lara Montecalvo and Judge Julie Rikelman. President Barack Obama nominated Barron, while President Joe Biden appointed Montecalvo and Rikelman.

The case began in late January when the Office of Management and Budget issued a two-page memo that led to widespread confusion about the proposed freeze on grants and loans from numerous federal departments and agencies.

The announcement quickly led to two lawsuits, National Council of Nonprofits v. Office of Management and Budget and State of New York v. Trump.

This latter case, filed by Democratic attorneys general from 22 states and the District of Columbia, is the one that worked its way to the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals.

The attorneys general who brought that case represent Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin.

The Department of Justice’s appeal in the attorneys general case followed Chief Judge John J. McConnell Jr. of the U.S. District Court in Rhode Island issuing a preliminary injunction in early March.

There is also a preliminary injunction in the other case, issued by District Judge Loren L. AliKhan of the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia in late February. 

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., secretary of Health and Human Services, testifies during his Senate Finance Committee confirmation hearing at the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Jan. 29, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration announced a sweeping plan Thursday to restructure the Department of Health and Human Services by cutting an additional 10,000 workers and closing down half of its 10 regional offices.

The overhaul will affect many of the agencies that make up HHS, including the Food and Drug Administration, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. HHS overall will be downsized from a full-time workforce of 82,000 to 62,000, including those who took early retirement or a buyout offer.

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. released a written statement along with the announcement, saying the changes would benefit Americans.

“We aren’t just reducing bureaucratic sprawl. We are realigning the organization with its core mission and our new priorities in reversing the chronic disease epidemic,” Kennedy said. “This Department will do more — a lot more — at a lower cost to the taxpayer.”  

The U.S. Senate voted to confirm Kennedy as the nation’s top public health official in mid-February.

Democrats immediately reacted with deep concern.

Senate Appropriations Committee ranking member Patty Murray, D-Wash., said that she was “stunned at the lack of thought about what they are doing to the American public and their health.”

Murray said the committee, which controls about one-third of all federal spending, “absolutely” has an oversight role to play in tracking HHS actions.

Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin, the top Democrat on the Appropriations subcommittee that funds HHS, said she believes HHS has overstepped its authority and expects the panel will look into its actions.

“These individuals who are going to be terminated under this plan play vital roles in the health of Wisconsinites and people nationally,” Baldwin said. “And I believe that they do not have the authority, the Trump administration does not have the authority to do this wholesale reorganization without working with Congress.”

Maryland Democratic Sen. Angela Alsobrooks, whose constituents in suburban Washington likely hold many of the jobs in question, wrote in a statement the HHS’ restructuring plans are “dangerous and deadly.”

“I warned America that confirming RFK Jr. would be a mistake,” Alsobrooks wrote. “His blatant distrust of science and disregard for research and advancement makes him completely unqualified.”

Cuts across department

The announcement says reorganizing HHS will cut its $1.7 trillion annual budget by about $1.8 billion, in part, by lowering overall staff levels.

Staffing cuts will be spread out over HHS and several of the agencies it oversees. The restructuring plans to eliminate 3,500 full-time workers at the FDA, 2,400 employees at the CDC, 1,200 staff at the NIH and 300 workers at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

“The consolidation and cuts are designed not only to save money, but to make the organization more efficient and more responsive to Americans’ needs, and to implement the Make America Healthy Again goal of ending the chronic disease epidemic,” according to a fact sheet.

Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, or HELP, Committee Chairman Bill Cassidy, R-La., wrote in a statement that he looks “forward to hearing how this reorganization furthers these goals.”

“I am interested in HHS working better, such as lifesaving drug approval more rapidly, and Medicare service improved,” Cassidy wrote.

Regional offices, divisions affected

HHS did not immediately respond to a request from States Newsroom about which five of its 10 regional offices would shutter or when those closures would take effect.

Its website shows the offices are located in Boston; New York City; Philadelphia; Atlanta; Chicago; Dallas; Kansas City, Missouri; Denver; San Francisco; and Seattle.

HHS plans to reduce its divisions from 28 to 15 while also establishing the Administration for a Healthy America, or AHA.

That new entity will combine the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health, Health Resources and Services Administration, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry and National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

That change will “improve coordination of health resources for low-income Americans and will focus on areas including, Primary Care, Maternal and Child Health, Mental Health, Environmental Health, HIV/AIDS, and Workforce development. Transferring SAMHSA to AHA will increase operational efficiency and assure programs are carried out because it will break down artificial divisions between similar programs,” according to the announcement.

HHS will roll the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response into the CDC.

The department plans to create a new assistant secretary for enforcement, who will be responsible for work within the Departmental Appeals Board, Office of Medicare Hearings and Appeals and Office for Civil Rights.

House speaker says HHS is ‘bloated’

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., posted on social media that he fully backed the changes in store for HHS.

​​”HHS is one of the most bureaucratic and bloated government agencies,” Johnson wrote. “@SecKennedy is bringing new, much-needed ideas to the department by returning HHS to its core mission while maintaining the critical programs it provides Americans.”

Advocates shared Democrats’ concern about the staff cutbacks.

Stella Dantas, president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, released a statement saying the organization was “alarmed by the sudden termination of thousands of dedicated HHS employees, whose absence compounds the loss of thousands of fellow employees who have already been forced to leave U.S. health agencies.”

“Thanks to collaboration with HHS, ACOG has been able to contribute to advances in the provision of maternal health care, broadened coverage of critical preventive care, increased adoption of vaccines, raised awareness of fetal alcohol syndrome, strengthened STI prevention efforts, and more,” Dantas wrote. “This attack on public health—and HHS’ ability to advance it—will hurt people across the United States every single day.”

U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., points to text messages by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth during an annual worldwide threats assessment hearing at the Longworth House Office Building on March 26, 2025, in Washington, D.C. The hearing held by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence addressed top aides inadvertently including Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief for The Atlantic magazine, on a high level Trump administration Signal group chat discussing plans to bomb Houthi targets in Yemen. (Photo by Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The now-famous group chat made up of high-ranking Trump administration national security officials and a journalist included a precise timeline of U.S. bombing of Houthi targets in Yemen, and revealed one of the targets of the attack was under surveillance, according to a release of the entire text chain The Atlantic published Wednesday.

Despite the newly revealed details of the leaked chat, administration officials, including President Donald Trump himself, continued to downplay the seriousness of the breach, and Republicans in Congress refused to join Democrats in calls for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to step down.

Administration officials argued the texts lacked key information and that the “attack plans” revealed in the chat were less damaging than “war plans,” the term Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg used to refer to information he’d decided to withhold for national security reasons. Trump aides also implied the magazine – which has endorsed Trump’s opponent in each of his elections – was spinning the entire episode to discredit the administration.

What’s been dubbed “Signalgate” began when The Atlantic on Monday published a stunning account by  Goldberg of his apparently accidental inclusion in a group chat on the messaging app Signal, titled “The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans.”

The others in the chat were senior administration officials discussing the upcoming war operation.

Administration leaders on Tuesday denied, including in testimony before Congress, that the chat contained classified information. The magazine then published a report Wednesday by Goldberg and staff writer Shane Harris that purported to include virtually the entire transcript of the chat until Goldberg’s voluntary exit.

The administration position was inconsistent with the screenshots published in The Atlantic of detailed and explicit messages in the chat. At the Capitol, concerns were raised even among the administration’s usually obsequious GOP allies in Congress, with U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker saying the information in the chat should have been classified.

“The information as published recently appears to me to be of such a sensitive nature that, based on my knowledge, I would have wanted to classify it,” Wicker, a Mississippi Republican, told reporters on the Hill Wednesday.

Attack details revealed

In the initial story, Goldberg reported National Security Advisor Michael Waltz on March 11 added the journalist to a group chat on Signal that included Vice President J.D. Vance, Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Waltz and others.

Goldberg in the first story withheld details of the chat that he said could have compromised intelligence-gathering and military operations.

But after a day of administration figures claiming the Signal chat did not reveal classified material, while smearing Goldberg, the magazine published the entire thread with one redaction: the name of Ratcliffe’s chief of staff, at the request of a CIA spokesperson.

The unredacted messages show Hegseth shared plans of the bombing campaign about 30 minutes before the first planes took off on March 15 and two hours before the start of the window of opportunity for hitting a target.

“TEAM UPDATE,” Hegseth wrote in the chat on the day of the strike, according to the Atlantic’s Wednesday story. “TIME NOW (1144et): Weather is FAVORABLE. Just CONFIRMED w/CENTCOM we are a GO for mission launch.”

In the same message, Hegseth laid out a timeline of the attack, including confirmation that a target was at his expected location.

“Target Terrorist is @ his Known Location so SHOULD BE ON TIME,” Hegseth wrote.

He also noted that the mission’s operational security was “clean.”

Two hours and 15 minutes later, Waltz told the group that bombs had destroyed a building where the Houthi “top missile guy” was thought to be present.

“The first target – their top missile guy – we had positive ID of him walking into his girlfriend’s building and it’s now collapsed,” Waltz wrote.

Tuesday denials led to publishing

At a previously scheduled U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee hearing Tuesday, Gabbard said that no classified information was discussed in the chat.

Trump echoed that message and Hegseth said, “Nobody was texting war plans and that’s all I have to say about that.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote on social media:

“Here are the facts about his latest story: 1. No ‘war plans’ were discussed. 2. No classified material was sent to the thread. 3. The White House Counsel’s Office has provided guidance on a number of different platforms for President Trump’s top officials to communicate as safely and efficiently as possible.”

Gabbard and Ratcliffe told the Senate Intelligence Committee they did not recall specific weapons systems or the timing of the operation being discussed in the chat.

But the transcript published by The Atlantic showed Hegseth’s down-to-the-minute timeline of the launch of F-18 aircraft.

The denials led to the magazine’s decision to publish the full transcript Wednesday, Goldberg and Harris wrote.

“The statements by Hegseth, Gabbard, Ratcliffe, and Trump — combined with the assertions made by numerous administration officials that we are lying about the content of the Signal texts — have led us to believe that people should see the texts in order to reach their own conclusions,” they wrote.

“There is a clear public interest in disclosing the sort of information that Trump advisers included in nonsecure communications channels, especially because senior administration figures are attempting to downplay the significance of the messages that were shared.”

‘No names. No targets.’

But Hegseth and other administration officials continued to deny the growing controversy was serious Wednesday.

“So, let’s (sic) me get this straight,” Hegseth wrote on X Wednesday. “The Atlantic released the so-called ‘war plans’ and those ‘plans’ include: No names. No targets. No locations. No units. No routes. No sources. No methods. And no classified information.

“Those are some really shitty war plans.”

Waltz posted a similar message.

“No locations,” he wrote. “No sources & methods. NO WAR PLANS. Foreign partners had already been notified that strikes were imminent. BOTTOM LINE:  President Trump is protecting America and our interests.”

White House Counselor Alina Habba told reporters shortly after the second Atlantic story posted on Wednesday morning the issue had been overblown.

“We stand by Mike Waltz; he’s doing a tremendous job,” she said, according to a White House pool report. “I think this is a distraction.”

Bipartisan call for investigation

Leading members of Congress, though, were treating the matter with more seriousness.

Wicker said he and Armed Services ranking Democrat Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island had agreed on next steps, which included a letter to the administration asking for an expedited inspector general report on the matter.

He also said they were requesting “a senior person” come to a secure facility on Capitol Hill to provide a classified briefing to the committee to confirm the reporting was accurate.

Asked what the consequence should be for Hegseth if the transcript of the chat was accurate, Wicker took a forgiving tone.

“I make a lot of mistakes in my life,” he said. “And I’ve found that it’s best when I just own up to it and say ‘I’m human, I made a mistake.’ And I’m glad in this case no real damage was done. I think that’s probably the approach of the administration right up to the president.”

He also said that no targets or specific timing were mentioned.

Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a moderate who has voiced criticism of Trump more often than most GOP colleagues, wrote in an X post Wednesday that the incident should be a “wake-up call” to prioritize operational security.

“I am appalled by the egregious security breach from top administration officials,” she wrote. “Their disregard for stringent safeguards and secure channels could have compromised a high-stakes operation and put our servicemembers at risk. I hope this serves as a wake-up call that operational security must be a top priority for everyone—especially our leaders.”

Dems urge Hegseth’s resignation

Many Democrats went further, calling for Hegseth to resign over the use of an unclassified messaging platform to discuss impending military action.

Gabbard and others noted the Defense secretary can decide what information is classified to argue that the chat did not include classified information.

But critics said whether or not the information was technically classified, its disclosure would put service members at greater risk.

“Advance strike times are sensitive and classified because they put American military directly at risk,” Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat, wrote on social media Wednesday. “The Secretary of Defense was blasting them out to unknown numbers over unclassified channels. It’s sloppy, careless, and dangerous. He should resign.”

Warner spokeswoman Rachel Cohen added that, despite the administration’s denials, the information revealed in The Atlantic would compromise intelligence sources and methods.

“They can keep repeating this but it’s not true,” she wrote, responding to Hegseth’s post. “Those messages, as released by the Atlantic, are source revealing, and include targeting and weapons information that would have, at the very least, been considered at the ‘secret’ classification level.”

The top Democrats in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate, Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer, both of New York, also called for Hegseth to lose his job.

“The secretary of Defense should be fired immediately if he’s not man enough to own up to his mistakes and resign in disgrace,” Jeffries said on MSNBC Wednesday.

“I agree he should be fired,” Schumer told reporters at the Capitol.

Jayanta Bhattacharya, President Donald Trump's nominee to be director of the National Institutes of Health, speaks at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions on Capitol Hill on March 5, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

This report was updated at 7:59 p.m. EDT.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate confirmed President Donald Trump’s nominees to lead the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health.

Senators voted 53-47 along party lines Tuesday evening to confirm Jayanta Bhattacharya as director of the NIH before voting 56-44 to approve Martin Makary as FDA commissioner.

Democratic Sens. Dick Durbin of Illinois as well as Maggie Hassan and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire were the only three members of their party to vote for Makary.

Shaheen said during an interview Wednesday that while she has reservations about how the Trump administration might try to change access to medication abortion, she felt Makary was qualified to lead the FDA.

“Well, I’m very concerned about what this administration might do about mifepristone,” Shaheen said. “But, I thought it was important to have someone in that role who has the scientific background and ability to run the agency.”

Hassan declined to answer questions about her vote when asked about it Wednesday afternoon by States Newsroom. Her office declined to send a written statement from the senator, offering only a response from a spokesperson. 

“The opioid epidemic has devasted communities across New Hampshire, and the FDA has made mistakes over the years that fueled this epidemic,” the spokesperson wrote in an email. “Senator Hassan voted for Dr. Makary as Commissioner of the FDA following his clear commitment to ensuring that the agency learns from its past mistakes and acts aggressively to tackle this crisis.”

Senate confirmation came just weeks after the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, or HELP, Committee voted to advance Makary and Bhattacharya.

Sen. John Hickenlooper, D-Colo., voted in committee to send Makary’s nomination to the floor, but switched to opposing his confirmation on Tuesday.

Hickenlooper said during a brief interview with States Newsroom on Wednesday that he ultimately couldn’t support Makary over his comments about medication abortion. But he said nothing significant happened between his yes vote in committee and his no vote on the floor.

“I agonized over it. I could have easily gone back and voted yes,” Hickenlooper said. “You know, at some point when I see him, I’ll apologize and say, ‘You know, that was a hard vote for me. But I really wish you would have been more demonstrative about specifically mifepristone, because I think that’s a big issue that the FDA is going to take on.’”

Hickenlooper said he spoke with his staff and his wife over Makary’s comments about access to medication abortion before he cast his no vote on the Senate floor.

“I realized that he serves at the pleasure of the president, so what the president says he’s probably going to have to do,” Hickenlooper said. “But for me, I just became more and more uncomfortable that he wouldn’t make a few statements to say that, you know, this is not something that is a medical reinterpretation for political purposes. He should have said something.”

Abortion pill

Makary will have considerable authority at the FDA to determine if access to medication abortion remains as it is now, if the agency changes prescribing guidelines, or even pulls its approval.

During his confirmation hearing in early March, Makary testified he hadn’t yet decided how he would approach that aspect of the job.

“I have no preconceived plans on mifepristone policy except to take a solid, hard look at the data and to meet with the professional career scientists who have reviewed the data at the FDA,” Makary said at the time.

Medication abortion is a two-drug regimen consisting of mifepristone and misoprostol that accounts for about 63% of all pregnancy terminations within the United States, according to research from the Guttmacher Institute.

The FDA originally approved mifepristone in 2000 and changed its prescribing guidelines in 2016 and 2021. It is currently approved for use up to 10 weeks gestation and can be prescribed via telehealth and shipped to patients.

Sixteen major medical organizations — including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American Medical Association and the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine — affirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court last year that mifepristone is safe and effective.

“The scientific evidence is overwhelming: major adverse events occur in less than 0.32% of patients,” the medical organizations wrote in a 45-page brief. “The risk of death is almost non-existent.”

Goals for NIH

Bhattacharya testified during his confirmation hearing that he has five goals for the NIH, including focusing the agency’s research on chronic diseases and funding the “most innovative biomedical research agenda possible.”

“The NIH is the crown jewel of American biomedical sciences, with a long and illustrious history of supporting breakthroughs in biology and medicine,” Bhattacharya said at the time. “I have the utmost respect for the NIH scientists and staff over the decades who have contributed to this success.”

But, he said, “American biomedical sciences are at a crossroads” following the coronavirus pandemic.

Bhattacharya said during his hearing he would ensure NIH’s scientific research is replicable, that it has a culture that respects “free speech in science and scientific dissent” and that it regulates “risky research that has the possibility of causing a pandemic.”

“While the vast majority of biomedical research poses no risk of harm to research subjects or the public, the NIH must ensure that it never supports work that might cause harm.”

President Donald Trump and Congress have until August or September to reach agreement and act on the debt limit, the Congressional Budget Office forecast Wednesday.  (Stock photo/Getty Images Plus)

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump and Congress have until August or September to reach agreement and act on the debt limit, the Congressional Budget Office forecast Wednesday.

Otherwise the United States would default for the first time in history, likely leading to a global financial crisis.

The nonpartisan CBO projection is similar to an estimate published earlier this week by the Bipartisan Policy Center think tank, which expects the X-date will occur between mid-July and early October.

The previous debt limit suspension expired in January, but the Treasury Department has been able to keep paying all the government’s bills through accounting maneuvers called extraordinary measures. When those run out, the country would hit the X-date and a default would begin.

The four-page CBO report says the default range “is uncertain” because how much money the federal government brings in as well as how much it spends at a given time is difficult to track. 

“If the government’s borrowing needs are significantly greater than CBO projects, the Treasury’s resources could be exhausted in late May or sometime in June, before tax payments due in mid-June are received or before additional extraordinary measures become available on June 30,” the report states. “Conversely, if borrowing needs fall short of the amounts in CBO’s projections, the extraordinary measures will permit the Treasury to continue financing government activities longer than expected.”

GOP bill on tap

Republicans in Congress are hoping to approve a massive bill in the months ahead that would extend the 2017 tax law, creating $4.5 trillion in new deficits. The package is also supposed to appropriate hundreds of billions of dollars to the Department of Defense and border security initiatives.

GOP lawmakers hope to pay for some of those increases in the deficit through spending cuts, but are far from agreement on how best to do that.

The debt limit allows the Treasury Department to borrow money to pay all of the country’s bills in full and on time. The federal government must borrow money to pay for spending that Congress has approved that isn’t funded by taxes or other fees.

During the last full fiscal year, that imbalance between revenue and spending, also called the deficit, totalled $1.8 trillion. Over decades, annual deficits have added up to a $36.2 trillion national debt.

Congress failing to raise or suspend the debt limit before the default date would limit the Treasury Department to spending only the cash it had on hand, a scenario with much broader implications than a partial government shutdown.

A default could lead the federal government to delay or simply never make payments on thousands of federal accounts, including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, troop pay, federal employee salaries and much more.

The Treasury Department writes on its website that not raising the debt limit by a specific dollar amount or suspending the debt limit through a future date “would have catastrophic economic consequences.”

A Government Accountability Office report lists off several negative repercussions of a default, including that it could trigger runs on banks and money market funds, that it would likely reduce lending to households and businesses, that it would lead to a substantial downgrade to the country’s sovereign credit rating and that it would likely lead to a significant and potentially long-lasting recession.

Treasury projection in May

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent plans to send his department’s default date projection to Congress in May, though he wrote in a March letter that lawmakers should get to work sooner rather than later.

“The period of time that cash and extraordinary measures may last is subject to considerable uncertainty due to a variety of factors, including the unpredictability of tax receipts and the normal changes of forecasting the payments and receipts of the U.S. government months into the future,” Bessent wrote. “We expect to provide an update during the first half of May, after the majority of receipts from the April income tax filing season have been received.”

Bessent then urged lawmakers “to act promptly to protect the full faith and credit of the United States.”

Republican leaders in Congress and the Trump administration have just a few more months to decide how they want to handle this year’s debt limit debate.

House Republicans included a proposal in their budget resolution to raise the debt limit by $4 trillion later this year, when GOP lawmakers draft the bill to extend the 2017 tax cuts. But the Senate has yet to agree to that blueprint.

Republicans raising the debt limit through the complicated budget reconciliation process would require support from nearly every GOP lawmaker in Congress, since the party holds a paper-thin majority in the House and just 53 seats in the Senate.

Nearly two years ago, when Congress sent the last debt limit bill to the White House, 71 House Republicans and 31 GOP senators voted against approval.

The other option is for Republicans and Democrats to negotiate a bipartisan agreement on the debt limit that can get the support of at least 60 senators to move past the legislative filibuster.