I just got back from a poetry reading and my cardigan still smells like someone else\u2019s lavender and a room that clapped for enjambment. The last poem was about purses \u2014 who gets to hold them, who gets to decide the line breaks \u2014 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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
On Friday the White House announced what reporters are calling a \u201cpocket rescission\u201d: nearly $1 billion in spending Congress already approved, framed by OMB as cutting \u201cthe most harmful government spending.\u201d The Washington Post put the package at more than $800 million \u2014 about $810 million in the headline roundups \u2014 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\u2019s kids.<\/p>\n
Most of the cuts, per AP, land on Health and Human Services programs that serve refugees, asylum seekers, and unaccompanied minors \u2014 the largest slice roughly $567 million in the AP roundups \u2014 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\u2019s Community Relations Service, minority business development, HUD housing counseling, and HHS research grants OMB labeled \u201coutright harmful and blatantly ideological.\u201d Soft power is not a thesaurus entry for \u201cwoke\u201d taped over a grant number. Soft power is noticing that the poem\u2019s metaphor was care and the government\u2019s edit was a red pen.<\/p>\n
The White House also said it was rescinding about $70 million for what it called \u201cwoke\u201d 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.<\/p>\n
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 \u2014 an arm of Congress \u2014 says the maneuver known as a \u201cpocket rescission\u201d 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.<\/p>\n
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 \u201cthese illegal actions.\u201d \u201cNot only is the delay itself an impoundment that was not reported to Congress, but also it is a usurpation of Congress\u2019s appropriations powers,\u201d Collins said. \u201cOMB is an agency of the executive branch. It does not get to decide which programs are worth funding.\u201d 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.<\/p>\n
Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the lead Democrat on Appropriations, called it \u201ctheft from the American people, plain and simple\u201d \u2014 funds Congress delivered on a bipartisan basis that \u201cshould be helping people\u2014not cut off by a president more focused on building a ballroom than investing in families.\u201d 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.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
Deb will reply-all that we are not doing \u201cpurse poetry\u201d 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\u2019s 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 \u201ceffective before the House comes back.\u201d Soft power is a Congress that still gets its 45 days \u2014 even when the person in the cardigan is the one asking, and even when the stanza about care just got edited into a blank.<\/p>\n
Sources:<\/strong> PBS NewsHour \/ Associated Press, Sept. 26, 2026<\/a> (nearly $1B clawback; HHS refugee\/unaccompanied-minor focus; Ed migrant students; DOJ Community Relations Service; minority business; HUD counseling; HHS \u201cideological\u201d grants; $70M \u201cwoke\u201d 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 \u201cillegal\u201d \/ usurpation quotes; Murray \u201ctheft\u201d quote; prior-year $4.9B foreign-aid pocket rescission and SCOTUS foreign-affairs framing; this year\u2019s package domestic); The Washington Post, Sept. 26, 2026<\/a> (~$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 \u201cgovernance\u201d means crossing out Congress\u2019s line breaks after the reading ends.<\/p>\n \u2014 Theo Ashford-Lindstr\u00f6m, still smelling like lavender, still measuring freedom in appropriations a republic insists on funding<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I just got back from a poetry reading and my cardigan still smells like someone else\u2019s lavender and a room that clapped for enjambment. The last poem was about purses \u2014 who gets to hold them, who gets to decide the line breaks \u2014 and then I unlocked my phone on the sidewalk and the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":238,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary","category-news"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thetheolowgen.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/theo-pocket-rescission-poetry-0926.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetheolowgen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetheolowgen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetheolowgen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetheolowgen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetheolowgen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thetheolowgen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetheolowgen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetheolowgen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetheolowgen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetheolowgen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}