Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) accused the White House budget office of "illegal actions" after it tried to cancel $810 million Congress had already approved. Critics answered by reminding her that she voted to put its director in charge.
Collins, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, said Friday that the administration sent the package of pocket rescissions "without warning or consultation." She called it the Office of Management and Budget's latest attempt "to undermine Congress's Constitutional power of the purse." OMB is led by Russ Vought, whom Collins voted to confirm last year.
That vote was the first thing many critics brought up.
"Susan Collins voted for Trump's pick to lead the OMB. Now she's surprised he's doing exactly what he promised to do?" wrote Troy Jackson, a Maine Democrat and former president of the state Senate.
He also said Collins has voted with Trump "96% of the time."
"Expressing concern isn't enough. Mainers see through the bulls---," Jackson wrote.
Bobby Kogan, senior director of federal budget policy at the Center for American Progress, worked at OMB during the Biden administration. He said Vought never hid his views.
"Collins voted to confirm Russ Vought as OMB Director despite the fact that he said a billion times that he thought Trump had a constitutional right to illegally impound funds, and now she's doing shocked Pikachu reactions," Kogan wrote.
Jordan Wood, a Maine Democrat who launched a campaign against Collins last year, made the same point in capital letters: "YOU literally voted to confirm Trump's OMB Director."
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) blamed Senate Republicans as a group.
"Time after time, they pledged allegiance to Trump instead of to citizens," Murphy wrote. "And he'll keep rolling them if the Senate doesn't change hands."
Veteran Capitol Hill reporter Jamie Dupree wrote that "the GOP Congress hasn't really strenuously defended the Power of the Purse against the moves of the Trump White House."
Progressive commentator Morgan J. Freeman brought up Collins' remark in 2020, after she voted to acquit Trump in his first impeachment trial, that he had learned a lesson.
"And Trump learned his lesson, huh?" he wrote.
The GOP Congress hasn't really strenuously defended the Power of the Purse against the moves of the Trump White House. https://t.co/qqjBHnJyYW
— Jamie Dupree (@jamiedupree) September 26, 2026
