Chapter 2. Executive Office Of The Vice-President

Key Points

• Flex the untapped statutory powers of the OMB to control funding of offices
• Put OMB Program Associate Directors who are conservative loyalists in charge of vast Resource Management Offices, and replace career officials with new deputy PADs.
• Make the National Security Council a part of the White House, unaccountable to other offices
• Seek to completely reverse Biden administration climate change policies
• Eliminate the Gender Policy Council and end all federal discussion or support for gender and LGBTQ+ identity, transgender care, and reproductive health, including abortion

STC 2025 Commentary

Vought is focused on weaponizing the OMB to assure the president’s supporters control the budget and purse strings of government in key sectors, while removing career officials who might object. He anticipates inter-governmental battles over the legality of the next presidential actions by stressing the need for a bold, legally “creative” White House Counsel. That includes efforts to reverse climate change progress under Biden.
By eliminating the Gender Policy Council, Vought would end all discussion and government protection related to gender and LGBTQ+ identity, with a special focus on blocking care for transgender individuals, and access to reproductive health services, including abortion.

Full Summary

Vought focuses on “the existential need for aggressive use of the vast powers of the executive branch to return power, by focusing on the untapped statutory powers of the OMB, within the Executive Office of the President (EOP). The OMB controls “many statutory and executive procedural levers to bring the bureaucracy in line with all budgetary, regulatory, and management decisions,” Vought writes. The OMB develops and enforces the president’s budget, manages agency personnel and performance, develops and oversees regulatory agenda, actions and federal information policy, and coordinates communication with Congress of testimonies and views on draft legislation. Most importantly, Vought argues, “it has the only statutory tools in the White House that are powerful enough to override implementing agencies’ bureaucracies.”
Among actions, Vought calls for putting OMB Program Associate Directors (PADs) who manage six vast Resource Management Offices (RMOs) personally in charge of ‘apportionments’ – installments of allotted budgets for offices of National Security; Natural Resources, Energy, and Science; Health; Education, Income Maintenance, and Labor; Transportation, Justice, and Homeland Security; Treasury, Commerce, and Housing. Vought suggests creating a new layer of deputy PADS to replace career professionals who help manage the money within the big RMOs.
Vought also calls for a strong and creative legal White House Counsel ready to battle other government departments who may disagree with the president’s actions “based on the mere assertion (and not proof) that the law disallows it or that, conversely, attempt to disregard the clear statutory commands of Congress.” He also discusses myriad steps to bring regulatory agencies and actions in line with conservative goals, including creation of “regulatory advance teams” primed to consult with agencies.
At specific agencies like the National Security Council, Vought calls for replacing directors/directorates not deemed sufficiently in line with the conservative agenda, and, on day one of 2025, sending home all non-essential NSA employees. He also wants the NSC to have its own lawyer, and be fully incorporated into the White House, not answerable to other offices. At the National Economic Council, he would put the NEC in charge of coordinating all internal economic policy, working closely with the Council of Economic Advisers.
At the Office of the US Trade Representative, Vought focuses on an empowered USTA that can battle China and globalization to assure US trade policies reflect conservative goals. Elsewhere, Vought calls for an Executive Order to reshape the US Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) and related climate change research, as well as sweeping changes to reduce the “litigation risk.” States Vought: “…the Biden Administration’s climate fanaticism will need a whole-of-government unwinding.”
Vought devotes special attention to the Gender Policy Council, calling for its elimination, along with any guidance documents it promoted. States Vought: “Abolishing the Gender Policy Council would eliminate central promotion of abortion (“health services”);comprehensive sexuality education (“education”); and the new woke gender ideology, which has as a principal tenet “gender affirming care” and “sex-change” surgeries on minors.” He suggests naming a Special Assistant to the President to lead promotion of domestic policy on life and family in line with conservative values, working with the Domestic Policy Council.