Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on May 14 told a House of Representatives committee that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will spend money that Congress allocates to the agency.
“If you appropriate me the funds, I’m going to spend them,” Kennedy told the House Appropriations Committee during a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington.
Lawmakers convened the hearing to go over President Donald Trump’s proposed fiscal year 2026 budget for HHS, which has typically had the largest budget of any federal agency.
Several members, including Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the top Democrat on the committee, said the major overhaul that Kennedy is overseeing, including cutting money from the National Institutes of Health, contravenes the budget for fiscal year 2025.
“You do not have authority to do what you are doing,” she said.
Rep. Lois Frankel (D-Fla.) later asked, “If we put money into the budget for you, you’re going to spend it the way we directed it?”
“Yes,” Kennedy said. “That’s what the law requires.”
The restructuring has also involved buyouts accepted by 10,000 HHS employees and the termination of about 10,000 others, according to Kennedy.
The health secretary said he consulted with Elon Musk, who was helping lead the Department of Government Efficiency. He said that in a number of cases, he pushed back against Musk’s recommendations.
“Elon Musk gave us help in figuring out where there was waste, fraud, and abuse in the department, but it was up to me to make the decision,” Kennedy testified. “And there are many instances where I pushed back and said, we don’t want to—that would hurt us to eliminate that group.”
Kennedy said he made sure that funding for Head Start, which provides child care for young children from low-income families, was not reduced.
The overhaul was needed because the government is spending trillions of dollars a year that it does not have, and because there was widespread duplication within HHS, Kennedy said.
Officials found, for instance, that there were nine separate offices for women’s health.
“[The changes] will allow us to act more nimbly and focus on the core mission of improving the nation’s health,” Kennedy said in his opening statement. “Without duplication of resources, and reduced bureaucracy, HHS can use federal dollars to more directly impact the lives of those served by HHS programs.”
Some lawmakers, including Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), said they appreciated Kennedy’s work on ultra-processed foods and artificial dyes, including bans on several colorings that are currently allowed to be added to food and drinks.
Kennedy was set to testify to the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee in the afternoon.
