I just got back from a poetry reading and my cardigan still smells like someone else’s lavender and a room that clapped for enjambment. The last poem was about purses — who gets to hold them, who gets to decide the line breaks — and then I unlocked my phone on the sidewalk and the Associated Press had already turned the metaphor into a clawback with a fiscal-year clock.
They pocketed the purse and called it governance. Soft power, if soft power is an Office of Management and Budget that treats a bipartisan appropriation like a draft stanza it can cross out after the reading ends.
On Friday the White House announced what reporters are calling a “pocket rescission”: nearly $1 billion in spending Congress already approved, framed by OMB as cutting “the most harmful government spending.” The Washington Post put the package at more than $800 million — about $810 million in the headline roundups — and on Saturday, September 26, 2026, lawmakers in both parties were already calling it what it looks like from the sidewalk: a usurpation of the purse dressed up as housekeeping. Soft power is not a crossed-out ledger under soft light. Soft power is a republic that can survive a mean headline without deleting the line item for somebody else’s kids.
Most of the cuts, per AP, land on Health and Human Services programs that serve refugees, asylum seekers, and unaccompanied minors — the largest slice roughly $567 million in the AP roundups — with the administration arguing the money is no longer needed because illegal border crossings have fallen. Also on the list: a Department of Education migrant-student program, the Justice Department’s Community Relations Service, minority business development, HUD housing counseling, and HHS research grants OMB labeled “outright harmful and blatantly ideological.” Soft power is not a thesaurus entry for “woke” taped over a grant number. Soft power is noticing that the poem’s metaphor was care and the government’s edit was a red pen.
The White House also said it was rescinding about $70 million for what it called “woke” international education, $28 million in HHS research grants, $9 million in climate-linked foreign debt relief, and another $10 million from a minority business development program. Soft power is not a punch list of culture-war adjectives. Soft power is a budget that still has to answer to the people who passed it.
Under federal law, Congress normally gets 45 days to review a rescission before it takes effect. This package was timed with about five days left in the federal fiscal year and the House out of session through the November election. The Government Accountability Office — an arm of Congress — says the maneuver known as a “pocket rescission” is illegal. Soft power is not running out the clock on the calendar and calling it authority. Soft power is remembering that OMB is an executive agency, not a second Appropriations Committee with a poetry slam gavel.
Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the Republican chair of Senate Appropriations, said the action came without warning or consultation and that she would work with colleagues on “these illegal actions.” “Not only is the delay itself an impoundment that was not reported to Congress, but also it is a usurpation of Congress’s appropriations powers,” Collins said. “OMB is an agency of the executive branch. It does not get to decide which programs are worth funding.” Soft power is a Republican appropriator using the word illegal in public. Soft power is the purse still belonging to the branch that writes the checks.
Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the lead Democrat on Appropriations, called it “theft from the American people, plain and simple” — funds Congress delivered on a bipartisan basis that “should be helping people—not cut off by a president more focused on building a ballroom than investing in families.” Soft power is not a ballroom metaphor from a Democrat you already agree with. Soft power is bipartisan money still supposed to mean bipartisan restraint.
We’ve seen the preview reel. A year ago the administration used a pocket rescission to block $4.9 billion in congressionally approved foreign aid; the Supreme Court declined to block those cuts, citing the weight of foreign-affairs authority. This year’s package is domestic. Soft power is noticing when the legal theory that rode foreign policy home tries to wear the same coat to a refugee clinic and a housing-counseling desk. Soft power is history repeating itself with a thicker stack of crossed-out domestic line items.
Deb will reply-all that we are not doing “purse poetry” during Sunday brunch. Buck will text that ignoring an HHS line item is a lifestyle choice. I love them. Family week borrowed the site keys; I am back from a reading with lavender on my sleeves and a Gen X exile’s expensive cardigan, the one that got me walked out of the You Know Who Post for caring too loudly. Soft power is not a pocket rescission stamped “effective before the House comes back.” Soft power is a Congress that still gets its 45 days — even when the person in the cardigan is the one asking, and even when the stanza about care just got edited into a blank.
Sources: PBS NewsHour / Associated Press, Sept. 26, 2026 (nearly $1B clawback; HHS refugee/unaccompanied-minor focus; Ed migrant students; DOJ Community Relations Service; minority business; HUD counseling; HHS “ideological” grants; $70M “woke” international education; $28M HHS research; $9M climate debt relief; $10M minority business; 45-day rule / ~5 days left in FY / House out; GAO says pocket rescission illegal; Collins “illegal” / usurpation quotes; Murray “theft” quote; prior-year $4.9B foreign-aid pocket rescission and SCOTUS foreign-affairs framing; this year’s package domestic); The Washington Post, Sept. 26, 2026 (~$810M / more than $800M; lawmakers both parties slam; refugee services and other domestic programs; spending-authority fight). Fill the notebook. Then ask who benefits when “governance” means crossing out Congress’s line breaks after the reading ends.
— Theo Ashford-Lindström, still smelling like lavender, still measuring freedom in appropriations a republic insists on funding
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