The Senate’s confirmation hearing of Russell Vought, one of Washington’s staunchest advocates for cutting spending, offered a preview Wednesday of the bruising spending wars likely to consume Congress this year.

Vought, President-elect Trump’s nominee for Office of Management and Budget director, a role he served in Trump’s first term, was at the helm of the budget office during the longest government shutdown in history in 2018 and 2019. Before that, he advocated for brinkmanship tactics to score policy wins.

He also advocated for reprogramming congressionally appropriated military construction money to pay for construction of the U.S.-Mexico border wall, and for withholding funds to Ukraine — two issues that came up at his fiery hearing.

Vought, a former executive director of the House Republican Study Committee when it was the Freedom Caucus of its day, is viewed as more ideologically aligned with the fiscal conservatives who have roiled House debates over spending than with GOP leaders who have agreed to bipartisan deals.

He is expected to cruise to Senate confirmation, like Trump’s other nominees, despite the misgivings of some Republicans who are leery of his affiliation with Project 2025, the conservative policy playbook that became a magnet for controversy during last year’s election.

Vought has been a leading proponent of converting thousands of federal civil servants to “Schedule F,” which would allow Trump and........

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