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rosa delauro
How the GOP Spending Bill Would 'Hand a Blank Check to Elon Musk'
One top Democrat called the seven-month continuing resolution a "power grab" that "further allows unchecked billionaire Elon Musk and President Trump to steal from the American people."
Mar 10, 2025
House Republicans this week are aiming to pass a seven-month government funding bill that Democrats said would effectively preempt any congressional effort to rein in billionaire Elon Musk as he works in concert with President Donald Trump to eviscerate federal agencies and fire government employees en masse.
The continuing resolution (CR), which would avert a looming shutdown and keep the government funded through September, calls for increasing military spending while cutting or declining to fund key programs involving rental assistance, public health, and other critical areas.
Politicoreported that the bill would boost military spending by roughly $6 billion and slash non-military funding by $13 billion.
"The bill, for instance, does not renew $40 million in fiscal 2024 funding for more than 70 programs that help children and families," the outlet noted. "Most had been requested by Democratic senators, but not all: Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith previously secured $250,000 for a group that works to prevent child abuse in her home state of Mississippi and GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski requested more than $5 million to help fund homeless shelters and prevent child abuse in Alaska."
Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said in a statement that the legislation "is a power grab for the White House and further allows unchecked billionaire Elon Musk and President Trump to steal from the American people."
DeLauro continued:
By essentially closing the book on negotiations for full-year funding bills that help the middle class and protect our national security, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have handed their power to an unelected billionaire. Elon Musk and President Trump are stealing from the middle class, seniors, veterans, working people, small businesses, and farms to pay for tax breaks for billionaires and big corporations. They have made it harder for Americans to get their Social Security benefits; shut down the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which has saved American families $21 billion; fired 6,000 veterans and reportedly plan to make it harder for veterans to access benefits by firing an additional 80,000 VA employees; laid off hundreds of workers who build and maintain critical nuclear weapons; and shut down medical research labs. House Republicans' response: hand a blank check to Elon Musk.
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, echoed DeLauro's criticism of the Republican bill, calling it a "slush fund continuing resolution that would give Donald Trump and Elon Musk more power over federal spending—and more power to pick winners and losers, which threatens families in blue and red states alike."
"Instead of turning the keys over to the Trump administration with this bill," said Murray, "Congress should immediately pass a short-term CR to prevent a shutdown and finish work on bipartisan funding bills that invest in families, keep America safe, and ensure our constituents have a say in how federal funding is spent."
In a fact sheet released over the weekend, Murray's office noted that full-year government funding bills typically provide "scores of specific funding directives for key programs and priorities" that constrain the executive branch.
But under the GOP continuing resolution, the fact sheet observes, "hundreds of those congressional directives fall away," giving the Trump administration broad discretion to "reshape spending priorities, eliminate longstanding programs, pick winners and losers, and more."
"Under this CR, the Trump administration could—for example—decide not to spend funding previously allocated for combatting fentanyl, the SUPPORT Act, and other substance abuse and mental health programs, or specific NIH priorities like Alzheimer's disease and vaccine research—and instead steer funding to other priorities of its choosing," the document states. "It could also pick and choose which Military Construction, Army Corps, or transit improvement and expansion projects to fund without direction from Congress."
A similar fact sheet released by DeLauro warns that the CR "provides a blank check to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in the amount of $4 billion, enabling Elon Musk to direct contracts to Starlink and SpaceX (companies owned by Musk) at a time when unvetted and unchecked SpaceX employees have burrowed in the FAA (the same Federal agency that regulates SpaceX), with no requirement for public transparency, fair competition, or congressional approval."
"This continuing resolution is a blank check for Elon Musk and creates more flexibility for him to steal from the middle class, seniors, veterans, working people, small businesses, and farmers to pay for tax breaks for billionaires," said DeLauro.
The Republican bill is expected to get a House vote as soon as Tuesday evening. In a post to his social media platform on Saturday, Trump praised the CR as "very good" and demanded lockstep unity from his party, which has willfully ceded the power of the purse in the opening weeks of the president's second White House term.
Trump's call for "no dissent" from Republicans stems from the party's narrow majorities in the House and Senate. In the latter chamber, the bill will need at least seven Democratic votes to pass.
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Confirmation of Project 2025 Architect Russ Vought Expected to Intensify Lawless Trump Rampage
"Now that Vought is officially running the show, he'll be able to unleash his radical agenda across the federal government. And if the courts stop him, he's got a billionaire friend with the government's keys and checkbook: Elon Musk."
Feb 07, 2025
In a party-line vote late Thursday, the U.S. Senate confirmed right-wing extremist and Project 2025 architect Russell Vought to lead the White House budget office as the Trump administration works to unilaterally dismantle entire federal agencies and choke off funding already approved by Congress.
Vought's confirmation, backed only by Republican votes in the Senate, comes after the chamber's Democrats used up all 30 hours of debate on his nomination to warn of the damage he could inflict as director of the Office of Management and Budget.
Lawmakers and progressive activists echoed those warnings in the wake of his confirmation. Alex Jacquez, chief of policy and advocacy at the Groundwork Collaborative, said in a statement that "Vought's fingerprints are all over last week's illegal funding freeze."
"Halting funding for Americans' healthcare, childcare, and food assistance wasn't a bug," said Jacquez. "It was by design, and Project 2025 is the blueprint. Now that Vought is officially running the show, he'll be able to unleash his radical agenda across the federal government. And if the courts stop him, he's got a billionaire friend with the government's keys and checkbook: Elon Musk."
During his confirmation process, Vought expressed agreement with Trump's view that the 1974 Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act (ICA)—a law passed in response to former President Richard Nixon's refusal to spend congressionally approved funds on programs he opposed—is unconstitutional, a view that Musk has also expressed.
Politicoreported Thursday that Vought "is expected to soon press his theory on impoundments, the idea that the president can ignore congressional spending edicts." Analysts have argued that even without the ICA, unilateral impoundments of the kind the Trump White House is expected to pursue in the coming months and years would still be unconstitutional.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said in a statement Thursday that "in confirming Vought, Republicans have put their stamp of approval on ending American democracy—built on three co-equal branches of government—and on creating a government of billionaires, by billionaires."
"Our nation is facing an extraordinary crisis," said DeLauro. "Donald Trump is attempting to claim absolute power for the presidency. The chaos, confusion, and flagrantly unconstitutional actions of the early days of this administration are largely of Vought's design and doing. With Vought's encouragement, the administration has taken the groundless position—and demonstrated—that they believe the White House has the absolute power to determine spending, and that they can choose to simply not fund programs and services that Congress has promised to the American people. This could not be further from the truth."
"The Constitution empowers Congress, not the president, with the power of the purse," DeLauro continued. "The president is not a king who can pick and choose which laws to follow and which laws to ignore. But the president is relying on the guidance and counsel of Russ Vought to do just that."
In one of his appearances before the Senate last month, Vought told lawmakers that he views the Clinton-era welfare reform law that doubled extreme poverty as a crowning achievement and declared that "we need to go after the mandatory programs," which include Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
"Vought is an extremist who has made clear he'll ignore our nation's laws, cut funding that helps people across the country, and give Trump unprecedented and unconstitutional power," warned Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, following Vought's confirmation. "There will be consequences."
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US Lawmakers Rip Trump's Plan to Destroy Department of Education
"We will not stand by and allow the impact that dismantling the Department of Education would have on the nation's students, parents, borrowers, educators, and communities."
Feb 06, 2025
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on Thursday led five members of Congress in a warning against the Trump administration's plan to "unilaterally dismantle" the Department of Education and demanded answers from the acting head of the agency about recent moves "to put federal workers on administrative leave, coerce employees into leaving their jobs, provide access to students' sensitive data, and illegally freeze vital funding."
"Over the course of two weeks, the Trump administration issued sweeping executive orders and sought to broadly and illegally freeze federal financial assistance," the lawmakers—Sanders (I-Vt.), Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.), and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.)—wrote in a letter to acting Education Secretary Denise Carter.
"Federal employees have been targeted, in some cases for simply following the law. Elon Musk is attempting to shut down the work of entire agencies while gaining access to some of the federal government's most far-reaching and sensitive data systems. Media reports indicate a similar effort may be underway at the Department of Education," the lawmakers noted.
The letter continues:
The Department [of Education] has been a target of President [Donald] Trump and his unelected advisers since even prior to his inauguration. And recently, the department has put workers on administrative leave for attending trainings promoted by former Secretary Betsy DeVos, once touted among results achieved by the department, and coerced employees into leaving their jobs. Workers at the department—like those across the government—have been made to fear their jobs will be reclassified so that they lose employment protections. Some staff from the entity referred to as the Department of Government Efficiency have reportedly gained access to internal department data systems, including financial aid systems that include personally identifiable information on millions of students. These actions appear to be part of a broader plan to dismantle the federal government until it is unable to function and meet the needs of the American people.
"We will not stand by and allow this to happen to the nation's students, parents, borrowers, educators, and communities," the lawmakers stressed. "Congress created the department to ensure all students in America have equal access to a high-quality education and that their civil rights are protected no matter their ZIP code."
"We urge you to provide information on the steps the department is taking to ensure the continuity of programs that Americans depend on, the ability of the department to effectively administer programs for their intended purposes without waste, fraud, and abuse, and the safeguards in place to protect student data privacy," the legislators added.
Specifically, the letter asks for a list of officials "who have been granted access to personally identifiable or sensitive information," an "explanation of all steps the department has taken to protect" such data, the names of "all individuals placed on administrative leave or terminated" since Trump took office and all department communications to such employees, and confirmation that the department "has not frozen, paused, impeded, blocked, canceled, or terminated any awards or obligations since January 20."
The lawmakers' letter came on the same day that nearly 100 Democratic members of the House of Representatives wrote to Carter requesting a meeting to discuss "reports that the Trump administration has plans to illegally dismantle or drastically reduce" the Department of Education via executive order.
Both letters came ahead of next week's scheduled Senate confirmation hearing for Linda McMahon, a top fundraiser for Trump's campaign whom the president subsequently nominated for education secretary. McMahon—a billionaire who led the Small Business Administration during Trump's first term—is expected to face tough questions from Democratic senators about what one campaigner called her "documented history of enabling sexual abuse of children and sweeping sexual violence under the rug" during her tenure as World Wrestling Entertainment CEO.
The very future of the Department of Education is uncertain, as Trump has repeatedly vowed to abolish the agency, which was established during the administration of President Jimmy Carter in 1979.
"I told Linda, 'Linda, I hope you do a great job and put yourself out of a job,'" Trump quipped earlier this week.
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