Trump’s Signature Tax Law Funds Political Goals During Shutdown

President Donald Trump is tapping money Congress approved in the massive tax and spending package earlier this year to cover his political priorities during the government shutdown.

Trump administration officials are using a $10 billion fund, enacted as part of Trump’s signature law (HR 1), to pay Department of Homeland Security law enforcement employees during the shutdown, a major priority for the president as he seeks to crack down on immigration and quell alleged unrest in some cities. The shift in funds was described by three people who spoke anonymously because the details of the plan have not been made public. Another person said other money in the law — a $3.3 billion fund for the Justice Department — is being used for federal law enforcement employee pay.

The Department of Homeland Security hasn’t publicly detailed the funds used to pay employees, though officials sent a statement attributed to an unnamed spokesperson confirming that Trump’s signature legislation will help cover the cost of paying 70,000 federal law enforcement officers during the shutdown.

The move is the latest example of how Trump and his Office of Management and Budget are pushing the boundaries of federal law to ensure their priorities are funded without deferring to Congress. The ability to maintain funding for his own priorities has allowed Trump to hold the line against negotiating with Democrats to end the shutdown that is now in its fifth week.

Trump’s unprecedented shutdown move hasn’t drawn significant criticism from Republicans, some of whom said they were not aware of the tax and spending package funds being used to cover shutdown costs.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said he supports paying federal employees, though he’s unfamiliar with the details of how the funds are being used.

“I don’t know enough of the details to know that, but I think the concept is appropriate,” Paul told reporters. “We should pay the employees. I think in a shutdown, you shouldn’t quit paying your employees.”

Republican lawmakers didn’t anticipate that this summer’s tax-and-spending law would serve as a backup fund to pay for during a shutdown, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) told reporters, saying they didn’t discuss “that level of detail.”

Republican lawmakers gave Trump a broad mandate with some of the funds created in their blockbuster tax-and-spending law this summer. The $10 billion fund being tapped for employee pay directed officials to use it “to safeguard the borders of the United States.” The $3.3 billion includes a sweeping directive to “combat drug trafficking.”

‘Massive Constitutional Questions’

Republicans enacted more than $300 billion for defense and border programs in the tax and spending bill that’s separate from the annual government-funding process. While Congress has yet to approve any of its 2026 annual spending bills or a plan to provide stopgap funding — actions that have sparked the shutdown — the money from this summer’s bills is fully accessible.

Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), a senior appropriator, said the large pot of available funds from the tax bill makes this shutdown much different than previous lapses.

“It’s a difference when you’re seeing a huge amount of money like that with very vague constraints on the spending,” Reed told reporters. “I’ve been through a couple shutdowns, and there’s none that had this.”

Delaying pay for many federal employees is a political pressure point for both parties as the shutdown drags on after beginning Oct. 1.

The use of reconciliation funds to pay Homeland Security employees appears to be legal, David Super, a law professor at Georgetown University, said. So does his use of tariff revenue to continue spending on the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, he added.

Trump and his budget director, Russell Vought, have spent much of 2025 battling Congress for influence over the federal budget. The Government Accountability Office, a congressionally mandated watchdog, has said the administration has violated federal law several times this year by withholding spending approved by Congress.

Vought’s influence over spending during the government shutdown “is the straw that broke the camel’s back,” Super said.

“The administration’s willingness to refuse to spend money that Congress directed it to spend, and its willingness to spend without appropriations means Congress’s power of the purse is effectively extinct,” Super said. “And that raises massive constitutional questions.”

“Some of it’s legal. Some is clearly not legal,” Super said.