Sponsors
The bill gives the President a unilateral tool to trim spending and potentially stabilize fiscal outcomes while explicitly protecting Social Security and Medicare, but it concentrates executive power and risks sudden funding disruptions and planning uncertainty for governments, service providers, and vulnerable populations.
Seniors and Medicare beneficiaries: Social Security (title II) and Medicare (title XVIII) funds are explicitly excluded from covered budgetary resources, protecting those benefits from being withheld.
Taxpayers: The President can withhold obligations to lower federal spending and reduce the fiscal-year deficit up to the amount withheld, which may reduce government borrowing needs.
Taxpayers and middle-class families: The executive gains a tool to avoid or reduce a projected deficit without waiting for new legislation, which could help stabilize markets and lower interest-cost pressures in times of fiscal stress.
Federal programs, contractors, and service recipients: Sudden withholding of obligations could cause immediate funding delays and payment disruptions for federal employees, contractors, and people who rely on federal services.
Low-income individuals and local governments: Withholding obligations to cut a deficit could delay discretionary program payments and services relied on by vulnerable populations and localities.
Taxpayers and the legislative branch: The measure grants the President substantial unilateral authority to suspend spending, reducing Congressional control over appropriations and weakening established checks (e.g., the Impoundment Control Act).
Based on analysis of 4 sections of legislative text.
Allows the President, after consulting Treasury and OMB, to withhold obligations of federal budgetary resources up to the amount needed to eliminate a projected fiscal-year deficit, excluding Medicare and Social Security funds.
Introduced February 26, 2026 by Richard Lynn Scott · Last progress February 26, 2026
Allows the President, after consulting the Secretary of the Treasury and the Office of Management and Budget, to refuse to obligate federal budgetary resources for a fiscal year up to the amount needed to eliminate a projected budget deficit. The authority excludes funds for Medicare (title XVIII) and Social Security retirement and disability (title II) and is effective even if it conflicts with the Impoundment Control Act. This gives the executive branch a statutory ability to withhold obligations for many federal programs when the President determines a deficit will occur, while leaving major entitlement programs for seniors explicitly protected.