President Donald Trump’s pick for second-in-command at the White House budget office got mild pushback from a top Republican while defending the administration’s spending freezes and mass layoffs.
“For too long, we’ve been spending money we don’t have on things we don’t need,” said Dan Bishop, the nominee for deputy director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, at his confirmation hearing Tuesday. “Our government has been self-absorbed, inefficient, unaccountable and maladministered.”
Bishop, a former congressman from North Carolina, told lawmakers on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee that he would back efforts to freeze funds already appropriated by Congress, a position OMB Director Russ Vought supports.
Vought, who was confirmed earlier this month to lead OMB, has deemed the Impoundment Control Act, which keeps the executive branch from redirecting appropriated funds, to be unconstitutional. Spending freezes have been the subject of legal fights since Trump took office.
