How Trump played ‘Budgetary Twister’ to pay some workers during the shutdown

WASHINGTON — Tucked among the many pages of President Donald Trump’s signature tax cuts is a single paragraph that provisions money for the Department of Homeland Security.

Totaling $10 billion, and created to help “safeguard” the border, the funds received scant attention when Republicans in Congress adopted the mammoth law this summer. But the money has since taken on greater significance, as one of the obscure accounts that have enabled the White House to manage the fallout from the government shutdown.

Three weeks into the fiscal stalemate, the Trump administration has taken a series of unorthodox steps to reprogram billions of dollars in enacted spending, marking an escalation in its campaign to wrest control of the budget away from Congress.

The moves, which are highly unusual during a shutdown, have allowed the president to pay military service members, immigration agents and other federal law enforcement officials, even though lawmakers have not approved new money for their wages.

Normally, federal workers do not receive income until the shutdown concludes, creating hardship for millions of troops and civil servants, who are either furloughed or forced to keep working without pay. But the White House has stretched its authority in recent days to assist certain employees who are seen as central to Trump’s political agenda, including those who conduct deportations.

Using a set of funds in the president’s tax law, the Trump administration has promised pay to thousands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and other law enforcement officials, who otherwise would not have received checks while the government is closed. And for the troops, Trump has turned to a special set of funds meant to develop weaponry, while ordering the Pentagon to explore other sources to pay the military throughout the shutdown.

Few in Congress have publicly challenged the president over his recent actions, given the broad, bipartisan desire to spare government employees, especially the troops, who are caught in the middle of the funding debate.

“This White House tests the waters,” said Shalanda Young, who served as the leader of the White House budget office under President Joe Biden.

Young said the administration would look to assume greater control over the power of the purse for as long as Congress refused to assert its authority under the Constitution to chart the nation’s spending.

“This White House is not going to stop until Democrats and Republicans choose to put that instinct ahead of partisan warfare,” she said.

Russell Vought, the director of the White House budget office, recently described the effort to pay troops as “playing budgetary Twister to find a pot of money that has a similar purpose that we can pay them.”

“It does have an impact on how long this can go without having severe repercussions,” Vought said in an appearance on “The Charlie Kirk Show” this month.

For weeks, Democrats have rejected a Republican proposal that would reopen the government into November because it does not extend a set of expiring health subsidies, which help millions of Americans pay for insurance with prices set to skyrocket soon. The two parties have made no progress toward resolving that impasse, while Trump has been all but absent in trying to broker a deal.

After a series of failed votes in the Senate, lawmakers in the chamber this week are set to consider a backup plan, which would restore pay for military service members and other federal workers who serve in vital federal roles. But some key Democrats have already said they would reject the approach, describing it as limited and insufficient.

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the minority leader, criticized the bill Monday as “more like a political ploy to pick and choose, giving Donald Trump discretion, which employees should be compensated and which employees should not be compensated.”

“All employees should be compensated,” Jeffries continued at a news conference, “and that will happen when we reopen the government.”

For the moment, federal workers are sorted into three categories. They are furloughed, forced to work without pay or essentially exempt from the shutdown, because their salaries come from funds already enacted by Congress.

In other cases, Trump and his top aides have proved more willing to bend the rules.

To help the troops, the Trump administration tapped a set of leftover funds at the Defense Department for research, development, testing and evaluation. That money is typically used to help the military refine weapons and develop other tools of war, but the Pentagon moved to reserve $8 billion from the account to pay active-duty military members their full checks this month.

Days later, Trump directed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to use “any funds appropriated by the Congress that remain available” to pay the military over the remainder of the shutdown. The scope of that order was sweeping, potentially giving the Pentagon great leeway to reconfigure its budget to ensure service members do not miss their checks.

Explaining its approach in a memo to Congress, the White House this month appeared to assert vast new authority to reprogram money during a shutdown, according to a copy viewed by The New York Times.

Mark Paoletta, the general counsel of the White House budget office, said that funds approved by lawmakers for one purpose could not “ordinarily” be used to backfill another, completely different account. But Paoletta argued that the accounts to pay military service members “no longer exist as a matter of law” now that federal funding has lapsed.

Cerin Lindgrensavage, a lawyer at Protect Democracy, an open-government group, said the Trump administration’s actions raised serious legal questions. Typically, she said, funds can be moved around only if Congress gives the president the authority to do so. A violation of that principle compromises the “most fundamental tenet underpinning Congress’ power of the purse,” Lindgrensavage added.

But Trump and Vought have long argued that the executive branch possesses great power to control the nation’s spending, with the ability to defy lawmakers’ budgetary instructions at times. The two men have already shuttered entire federal agencies, and canceled or frozen billions of dollars in funds enacted by Congress, in moves that have prompted dozens of lawsuits and open federal investigations.

Days after paying the troops, the Trump administration then moved to source additional funds to pay nearly 70,000 federal law enforcement officers across the federal government. Like military service members, these workers, which include ICE agents, had been required to continue reporting for duty without pay during the shutdown.

The administration promised checks soon to border enforcement officials, including those at U.S. Customs and Border Protection; certain correctional officers at the Federal Bureau of Prisons; and special agents with the FBI, the U.S. Secret Service and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, according to congressional aides.

To pay them, the Trump administration appeared to route the funds from two specific tranches of money that Republicans approved as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the president’s tax package, according to two people familiar with the matter. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to share information that the White House has not publicized.

Because those funds are limited in some ways under law, the administration appeared unable to use the money to pay all of the employees at a given agency, essentially creating a new class of worker in the shutdown.

Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, said last week that the administration would pay some law enforcement officials at the Transportation Security Administration. But the budgetary maneuvering did not appear to include the thousands of workers who screen bags at airports for security threats. Similarly, only some of the correctional officers at the Bureau of Prisons are set to receive pay, while many must continue reporting for duty without it, according to personnel and email records viewed by the Times.

David Super, a law professor at Georgetown University who studies the budget, said it was “unusual” that Congress even approved money in this manner as part of the tax bill. He said the legality of its use hinged on an unanswered question: if the Trump administration only paid law enforcement officers whose jobs fit the criteria outlined in the law.

But Super raised a broader, lasting concern with Trump’s actions to pay some government workers during the shutdown.