White House scraps public spending database

WASHINGTON — The White House budget office has taken down its website where approvals of federal funding provided in appropriations laws are statutorily required to be posted for public viewing, a move likely to face major blowback from members of Congress and government watchdogs.

As of Monday morning, the Office of Management and Budget was no longer making “apportionments” of previously enacted appropriations available on the website it set up for that purpose after Congress mandated the requirement starting in 2022. The site now simply says: “Page not found.”

Sources familiar with the decision said it was because sensitive and preliminary information was being disclosed on the site, including some information that could be considered risks to national security if made public. But open government groups seem likely to challenge the decision in court, given the apparent violation of federal law.

The fiscal 2022 wrap-up spending package, signed in March 2022, initially established the requirement for public posting of apportionments, which are how the OMB parcels out available funding to federal agencies to ensure they do not burn through the money too quickly.

The 2022 law required the budget office to establish its apportionments website within 120 days of enactment, with each apportionment document posted within two days, along with any footnotes and an explanation for those footnotes. Any change in the delegation of apportionment authority to different officials within the budget office would also have to be disclosed.

In the fiscal 2023 omnibus package enacted in late 2022, lawmakers inserted language making clear their intent was for the OMB to continue to “operate and maintain the automated system” required under the previous spending law in that fiscal year “and each fiscal year thereafter.”

The law was in part a response to actions taken during the first Trump administration, whereby then-Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought, through delegation of authority to political appointees at the agency, directed agencies to withhold the obligation of funds to Ukraine using apportionment footnotes. Vought is once again the White House budget office director after his party-line Senate confirmation vote earlier this year.

Democrats first raised the issue as an item they wanted to include in 2020 spending legislation, but President Donald Trump, then in his first term, threatened to veto it. So Democrats bided their time and waited out Trump, getting it over the finish line after the 2020 election, when they controlled both chambers and the White House.

Advocates for transparency in government hailed the apportionments database as a major step forward at the time. And it’s taken on more importance this year, amid the Trump administration’s various executive orders and other actions to delay or withhold funds for activities deemed out of step with its priorities.

Earlier this year, CQ Roll Call and later ProPublica used public apportionments data to report on previously enacted funding being freed up for the U.S. DOGE Service — more popularly known as the Department of Government Efficiency.

Through the beginning of March, the White House had apportioned over $40 million to “DOGE,” according to data compiled by OpenOMB, a website maintained by the Protect Democracy Project, a nonprofit.