Republican lawmakers are pushing back against sweeping cuts to the federal government launched by President Donald Trump and Elon Musk, as their downsizing crusade begins to hit GOP constituents.
A growing number of GOP lawmakers are trying to intervene with the Trump administration and are weighing legislation to circumvent the changes. But with the Department of Government Efficiency and the Office of Management and Budget moving at a rapid clip and flouting federal law to carve up the government, the lawmakers face monumental challenges in getting the White House to spare their constituents from the ax.
Idaho Republican Rep. Mike Simpson, a senior appropriator whose district is home to a number of national parks, said in an interview his staff is talking to the administration about how an OMB-directed, government-wide hiring freeze will affect the National Park Service. The park service fired 1,000 full-time staff Friday but said seasonal hiring is resuming, exempting 5,000 seasonal jobs from the hiring freeze.
Sen. Jerry Moran, another GOP appropriator who represents the agriculture-heavy state of Kansas, has told the White House that DOGE’s dismantling of USAID will impact constituents who have long relied on selling their crops to a government program that fights hunger abroad.
And Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, who chairs an appropriations subcommittee with jurisdiction over the National Institutes of Health, said her panel’s funding bill includes language to prevent the White House budget office from slashing billions of dollars in health research grant money. Capito has long been a champion of the NIH, linking the biomedical research agency’s funding to grant opportunities in her small state.
“I’m hearing from my institutions concerned about it,” Capito said in an interview. “It’s pretty drastic.”
The fight illustrates how efforts by DOGE and OMB to slash the federal bureaucracy are poised to create conflicts with industries and interests that Republican lawmakers hold dear. The confrontation is also the latest test of Capitol Hill’s power in the second Trump era, and a new front for lawmakers who have a direct say over federal spending.
The White House is standing behind the cuts and urging Congress to codify them, raising doubts about the extent to which Republicans on the Hill can soften the blow.
“President Trump has enjoyed broad support on his plan to ensure that taxpayer-funded programs align with the mandate the American people gave him in November,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said. “The spending freeze is already uncovering waste, fraud and abuse across federal agencies and ensuring better stewardship of taxpayer dollars, including for American farmers and families.”
It’s an awkward position for GOP lawmakers who have otherwise voiced support for DOGE.
Capito took to the Senate floor in the weeks before Trump took office to laud Musk’s initiative.
“Republicans are proud to have the Department of Government Efficiency … on our side,” she said. “Under President Biden, wasteful government spending spiraled out of control, harming hardworking Americans and their livelihoods.”
But when it comes to government waste, Republican lawmakers are beginning to see things differently as constituents in red states speak out. Many are waiting to see if the courts strike down some of DOGE and OMB’s actions, according to a senior Republican Hill aide granted anonymity to discuss party dynamics.
Some Republicans are “chafing about the basis of [the] executive doing it rather than it being done by Congress,” said the aide.
Capito didn’t say she wanted the courts to settle the matter for lawmakers, but made clear she believes lawsuits will determine whether various funding freezes and recissions are allowed to go through.
“They have given us the backup legal argument as to whether they can do it,” she said of the Trump administration. “I’m sure it will be determined in the court.”
Simpson, whose appropriations subcommittee oversees the Interior Department and National Park Service, has made federal support for national parks a centerpiece of his legislative portfolio over more than two decades in Congress.
“The hiring freeze has been a problem because now’s when we’re hiring seasonal employees for the parks — that’s a challenge,” he said in an interview.
Theresa Pierno, president and CEO for the National Parks Conservation Association, which has pushed back against the changes, said “when national parks struggle, gateway communities and economies feel the effects too.”
“The hiring freeze means our national parks will struggle with insufficient staffing as parks across the country need to begin hiring critical seasonal staff for spring break and summer,” Pierno said.
In the agriculture industry, an array of trade associations representing Kansas staples like sorghum and wheat are backing legislation from Moran and other Republicans from farm-dense states that would take the Food for Peace program out of the now-gutted USAID and fold it into USDA.
“By placing Food for Peace under USDA’s authority, we make certain that the program is in good hands and can continue to bring revenue to American agriculture,” Moran said on the Senate floor Thursday, also citing “growing concern” with “inefficiency” at USAID.
Republicans are increasingly speaking up against NIH cuts that are hitting universities in their states. Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins of Maine, who has said she’s heard from universities and labs in her state that the cuts would be “devastating,” pressed HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on her concerns. She said in a statement Monday that he has promised to “reexamine” the decision.
Sen. Katie Britt, an Alabama Republican who serves on the Appropriations Committee, was among the first to speak out in favor of a “targeted approach” to reducing government waste. The University of Alabama at Birmingham has said the cuts to NIH would slow research and hurt the state’s economy.
Britt’s fellow Alabama senator, Tommy Tuberville, acknowledged the impact in an interview, but suggested he’s not changing course. “I’m all on DOGE’s side.”
