By Bo Erickson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for the top budget office, Russ Vought, will face senators on Wednesday for potential confirmation to a crucial post for Trump’s goals to reshape and downsize the federal government.
Trump in November tapped Vought to again lead the Office of Management and Budget, as he did in the Republican’s first administration, a posting central to setting the president’s budget and organizing the federal government’s processes and spending.
Vought authored portions of the approximately 900-page conservative policy playbook called “Project 2025” that Trump eventually distanced himself from during the presidential campaign due to some of its hard-right proposals.
Vought is expected to face questions at Wednesday’s Senate Homeland Security committee hearing about his 26-page portion of the project, which he detailed several objectives similar to those that Trump and his allies like Elon Musk are now touting.
Vought wrote on the scope of the federal government and how to “hold career civil servants accountable for their performance.”
“It is vital that the director and his political staff, not the careerists, drive … the president’s actual priorities and not let them set their own agenda based on the wishes of the sprawling ‘good government’ management community in and outside of government,” Vought argued.
Vought also wrote that the director of the budget office must appoint a “general counsel who is respected yet creative and fearless in his or her ability to challenge legal precedents that serve to protect the status quo.”
While Trump expects this type of boldness and praised Vought for knowing “exactly how to dismantle the Deep State”, Vought’s agenda has already drawn criticism from some Democrats.
After Democratic Senator Patty Murray met with Vought on Tuesday, she said in a statement she had “grave concerns” about his support of “unlawfully overriding the spending decisions made by Congress.”
(Reporting by Bo Erickson; Editing by Scott Malone and Lisa Shumaker)
