Trump Cancels Nearly $1 Billion Congress Had Approved

President Donald Trump’s administration moved to cancel nearly $1 billion that Congress had already approved, using a rarely employed budget maneuver known as a pocket rescission. The White House says the targeted spending is wasteful or no longer necessary; critics in both parties say the maneuver improperly limits Congress’s power over federal spending.

The dispute is not simply about the size of the cuts. It is about timing and authority: the administration acted with only days left in the fiscal year, leaving little practical time for Congress to respond before the affected funds expire.

What the White House is canceling

CBS News reported that the largest piece is $567 million in Health and Human Services funding for services involving refugees, asylees and other migrants. The administration says lower border crossings and its policy priorities make the spending unnecessary.

The White House has defended the move as an effort to eliminate what it calls harmful spending. That is the administration’s position; it does not settle the legal dispute over whether the mechanism is permitted.

Why lawmakers are challenging the maneuver

Sen. Susan Collins, the Republican chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, has said the action is illegal and intrudes on Congress’s constitutional power of the purse. Other lawmakers have made similar objections.

The Government Accountability Office has previously taken the position that pocket rescissions violate the Impoundment Control Act because they can prevent Congress from completing the review process contemplated by the law. The administration disputes that interpretation.

The bigger fight is over who gets the final word

Congress writes appropriations laws, while the executive branch administers the agencies that spend the money. Pocket rescissions sit directly on that fault line because they can allow a president to propose cuts so late that the money expires before lawmakers can meaningfully act.

No court has issued a final ruling on the legality of this specific 2026 action. The immediate fact is that nearly $1 billion Congress approved is now being withheld under a contested presidential theory of spending authority, setting up another institutional fight over the limits of executive power.

References: Trump cancels nearly $1 billion in spending approved by Congress, a move some lawmakers called illegal | President Trump Takes Historic Action to Eliminate Wasteful and Harmful Spending