Senate Budget Committee advances Russell Vought, Project 2025 architect, to floor vote
WASHINGTON - The Senate Budget Committee voted on Thursday to advance Russell Vought, President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Office of Management and Budget, for a floor vote.
The floor vote, in which all senators will decide whether to officially confirm Vought for the role, will likely take place next week .Vought, who served in the same position during Trump’s first term, played a key role in overseeing the president’s budget and reviewing federal regulations by executive agencies.
He proposed thousands of dollars in cuts to Medicaid and other spending reductions for the Education Department, Interior Department and U.S. Agency for International Development, according to the Washington Post.
He’s also credited with authoring a 25-page chapter on executive power for Project 2025, a sweeping plan put together by The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, that aims to reshape the federal government. Democrats have called the plan dangerous, as Trump had distanced himself from it.
Reuters reported that Democrats on Senate budget and appropriations committees had tried to postpone the Thursday vote after the Trump administration had ordered a freeze on federal loans and grants.
Democrats on the Budget Committee ended up boycotting the vote, writing on X, formerly Twitter, that, “We will not vote for someone so clearly unfit for office.”
During his confirmation hearing earlier this month, Democrats and Republicans questioned Vought on a myriad of issues, including abortion and spending cuts on Medicaid.