Vought calls for more OMB staff after spearheading governmentwide cuts

The Trump administration’s top official leading governmentwide cuts said he values the input of the career federal workforce and has no intention of traumatizing it, despite his previous comments suggesting the contrary. 

Russ Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget, also defended his proposal to grow his own staff by 4% even as nearly every federal agency faces the prospects of drastic workforce cuts. Vought, testifying before a panel of the House Appropriations Committee on Wednesday, said he requires the additional staff due to the added strains being placed on his agency. 

Rep. David Joyce, R-Ohio, who chaired Wednesday’s hearing, asked why OMB’s need for more staff is “different than staffing needs at any other agencies.” 

“The reality is we've held constant for many, many years at the 500 [employee] level, even though the size of government has increased,” Vought said. He tried to cut OMB during his first tenure at the agency, Vought added, but found the workloads for each employee became too significant.

“You didn't have enough analysts to be able to do the job,” the director said.

Vought is the author of a directive instructing agencies to significantly cut their workforces through layoffs and other means. Agency leaders throughout government—under administrations in both parties—have for years suggested to Congress their missions have grown significantly and their staffing and other resources have not kept pace. 

Vought has made waves for his previous comments that he wants federal workers to be “traumatically affected” by government policy and that they should not want to go to work because they are “viewed as the villains.”

Vought has attempted to slash the federal workforce since returning to office by demanding layoffs at agencies, proposing significant budget cuts and pressuring employees to leave voluntarily. At the hearing the OMB director said his past comments were taken out of context and he was referring only to those employees who have been “weaponized” against the American public. 

He took a new tone when discussing the federal workforce with lawmakers. 

“It's never been my desire to traumatize individuals or workers at federal agencies,” Vought said. He added at agencies such as OMB, the National Institute of Health, the Veterans Affairs Department and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, there are some “career individuals who are doing incredible and are great public servants.” 

NIH, VA and NOAA have all instituted or are slated to implement widespread cuts to their workforces. 

“I want to know what career staff thinks,” Vought said. “It's a hallmark of my time at OMB.” 

He singled out the employees at his own agency, saying the civil servants there are “among the most resourceful and innovative our country has to offer.” 

“They are not only of great value to the taxpayer, but the whole nation,” Vought said. 

Democrats on the panel did not take Vought at his word. 

“The bottom line is that the actions that you've taken since then reiterates the message that you're trying to traumatize these people and that you want to treat them like villains,” said Rep. Glenn Ivey, D-Md.

Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Wash., suggested that Vought was “randomly scapegoating civil servants” instead of gleaning from them “what kind of bull---- paperwork they’re putting up with.” 

The OMB director made clear that the Department of Government Efficiency will be a permanent fixture in the Trump administration, despite Elon Musk’s departure. The vision for the new entity is for it to be “far more institutionalized at the actual agency [level],” he said, suggesting DOGE staffers are now decentralized and embedded throughout government. 

“The cabinet agencies that are in charge of the DOGE consultants that work for them are fundamentally in control of DOGE,” Vought said. 

The director once again threatened to withhold funds that Congress appropriates, saying the funding the executive branch receives is a ceiling rather than an amount that agencies must spend. Democrats have repeatedly challenged Vought’s view, suggesting it violates the Impoundment Control Act and the Constitution.