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military spending
Tell Your Senators: Don’t Give Trump and Musk a Blank Check to Continue Their Pillage
Why should any member of Congress vote in favor of a continuing resolution to fund government services that are no longer continuing?
Mar 12, 2025
Yesterday, the U.S. House passed legislation to fund the government through September 30 and thereby avert a shutdown at the end of this week.
The measure now goes to the Senate, where Democrats must decide whether to support it and thereby hand President Donald Trump and Elon Musk a blank check to continue their assault on the federal government.
The House bill would keep last year’s spending levels largely flat but would increase spending for the military by $6 billion and cut more than $1 billion from the District of Columbia’s budget.
Today’s real choice is between a continuing resolution that gives Trump and Musk free rein to decide what government services they want to continue and what services they want to shut down—or demanding that Trump and Musk stop usurping the power of Congress, as a condition for keeping the government funded.
In normal times, I recommend that Democrats vote for continuing budget resolutions because Democrats support the vital services that the government provides to the American people—Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Veterans services, education, the Food and Drug Administration, environmental protection, and much else.
In normal times, Democrats want to keep the government open.
In normal times, Democrats would be wrong to vote against a continuing resolution that caused the government to shut down.
But these are not normal times.
The president of the United States and the richest person in the world are already shutting the government down. They have effectively closed USAID and the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection. They have sent half the personnel of the Department of Education packing. They are eliminating Environmental Protection Agency offices responsible for addressing high levels of pollution facing poor communities.
They are usurping from Congress the power of the purse—the power to decide what services are to be funded and received by the American people—and are arrogating that power to themselves.
In 1996, when I was in then-President Bill Clinton’s cabinet, we opposed Newt Gingrich’s budget bullying. We also understood that Gingrich’s demands would seriously cripple the federal government. So Bill Clinton refused to go along with Gingrich’s budget resolution, and the government was shuttered for four long painful weeks..
Today’s situation is far worse. Trump and Musk aren’t just making demands that would cripple the federal government. They are directly crippling the federal government.
Why should any member of Congress vote in favor of a continuing resolution to fund government services that are no longer continuing?
Why should any member of Congress vote to give Trump and Musk a trillion dollars and then let them decide how to spend it—or not spend it?
Why should Congress give Trump and Musk a blank check to continue their pillage?
The real choice congressional Democrats face today is not between a continuing resolution that allows the government to function normally or a government shutdown. Under Trump and Musk, the government is not functioning normally. It is not continuing. It is already shutting down.
Today’s real choice is between a continuing resolution that gives Trump and Musk free rein to decide what government services they want to continue and what services they want to shut down—or demanding that Trump and Musk stop usurping the power of Congress, as a condition for keeping the government funded.
Trump, Musk, and the rest of their regime have made it clear that they don’t care what Congress or the courts say. They are acting unconstitutionally. They are actively destroying our system of government.
The spineless Republicans will not say this publicly. So Democrats must—and Democrats must insist on budget language that holds Trump and Musk accountable.
The House’s Republican-drafted budget resolution isn’t contingent on Trump observing existing laws. It does not instruct the president to stop Musk from riding roughshod over the federal government. It doesn’t tell the president and his cabinet to spend the money Congress intended to be spent.
Members of Trump’s team are already saying that if a continuing resolution is passed they will not observe laws that Congress has enacted and will not spend funds that Congress has authorized and appropriated. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, for example, says that even if the State Department is fully funded, he will void 83% of the contracts authorized for USAID.
Senate Democrats are needed to obtain 60 votes needed to pass the House’s continuing budget resolution through the Senate. But there is no point in Democrats voting to fund the government only to let Trump and Musk do whatever they see fit with those funds.
Senate Democrats have an opportunity to stop Trump and Musk from their illegal and unconstitutional shutting of the government. Democrats should say they’ll vote for the continuing budget resolution to keep the government going only if Trump agrees to abide by the law and keep the government going—fully funding the services that Congress intends to be fully funded and stop the pillaging.
If Democrats set out this condition clearly but Trump won’t agree, the consequences will be on Trump and the Republicans. They run the government now. They are the ones who are engaging in, or are complicit in, the wanton destruction now taking place.
This is an opportunity for the public to learn what Trump and Musk are doing, and why it’s illegal and unconstitutional.
In 1996, when Bill Clinton refused to go along with Newt Gingrich’s plan to cripple the federal government, causing the government to shut down for a month, Clinton wasn’t blamed. Gingrich was blamed.
If you live in a state with a Democratic senator, please phone them right now and tell them not to vote for the continuing resolution that gives Trump and Musk free rein to continue shutting the government. The Capitol switchboard is (202) 224-3121. A switchboard operator will connect you directly with the Senate office you request.
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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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$60 Billion in Waste and Fraud Easily Found Where Trump Refuses to Cut: The Pentagon
"We need a better balance between military spending and investments in diplomacy, development, humanitarian aid, global public health, and environmental protection," said one analyst.
Feb 28, 2025
A trio of government watchdogs on Friday advised U.S. President Donald Trump and his billionaire adviser, Elon Musk, to take a "road map for achieving efficiency" at the only federal agency that has failed seven consecutive audits of its spending, and the one that spends by far the most in taxpayer money: the Department of Defense.
The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has spent recent weeks seizing data and slashing spending and tens of thousands of employees at agencies across the government, including the Department of Education, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the Department of Labor.
But Musk's advisory body has had considerably less to say about waste and fraud at the Pentagon. The Tesla CEO met with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth earlier this month for preliminary talks about possible spending cuts; Hegseth suggested climate programs at the Pentagon could be on the chopping block, but did not mention any cuts to weapons systems—advocating instead to shift current spending to other DOD programs.
"Unlike cuts to education, medical research, environmental protection, and food assistance programs, the administration is proposing that any Pentagon 'savings' be redirected to missile defense systems, border militarization, and other controversial and destructive military projects," wrote Mike Merryman-Lotze of the American Friends Service Committee in a column on Friday. "This is an enormous missed opportunity. We don't need a rearranging of the deck chairs on the Pentagon's titanic budget. We need fundamental change."
A new report by the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, the Stimson Center, and Taxpayers for Common Sense on Friday suggested "eliminating dysfunctional weapons systems and outmoded business practices"—steps that would cut at least $60 billion in waste and inefficiencies at the DOD.
"The result will be more security at a lower cost," said William Hartung, senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute.
The report highlights significant cuts that could be made, including:
- The F-35 combat aircraft program, saving $12 billion or more per year;
- Aircraft carriers, saving $2.3 billion or more annually;
- Canceling plans to replace land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), saving $310 billion total; and
- Cutting long-range missile defense, saving $9.3 billion per year.
The think tanks also advised introducing measures to rein in overcharging by defense contractors, who are known to charge the government as much as 3,800% above the fair and reasonable price, as one did for a spare part in a recent case; and cut excess basing infrastructure around the world, saving as much as $5 billion each year.
"Contrary to popular belief in Washington, national security and fiscal discipline are not mutually exclusive," reads the report. "In fact, they are inextricably linked. Budgeting for U.S. national security needs today and into the future requires that policymakers tackle wasteful spending and inefficiencies across the board, and with the Pentagon budget closing in on $1 trillion per year, the United States cannot afford to ignore it."
"Thankfully, tackling Pentagon programs and practices that do not offer a good return on investment will not only save taxpayers billions of dollars—it will also help illuminate and sustain the U.S.' greatest national security priorities," the report continues.
Gabe Murphy of Taxpayers for Common Sense pointed out that F-35 combat aircrafts and the Sentinel ICBM are "overpriced, underperforming, and out of step with current missions."
Defunding such weapons programs "would allow us to invest more in real priorities," said Murphy.
Truly eliminating waste at the Pentagon, Hartung toldThe Intercept on Friday, "would mean abandoning America's 'cover the globe' military strategy in favor of a genuinely defensive approach, and one would have to make sure that cuts in legacy systems weren't just filled in with drones and other emerging tech."
"We need a better balance between military spending and investments in diplomacy, development, humanitarian aid, global public health, and environmental protection," Hartung added. "Some of our biggest existential threats are not military in nature—such as climate change and pandemics."
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