President-elect Donald Trump says his campaign promise to cut spending and reduce the federal bureaucracy may hinge on his plan to challenge a 1974 law limiting a president’s authority to block the spending of money appropriated by Congress.
Republican lawmakers share Mr. Trump’s desire to reduce spending, but some disagree with his plan to circumvent Congress and dispute the Impoundment Control Act of 1974.
“Appropriations of money begins with Congress. A president, any president, is responsible for executing the laws passed by Congress, and appropriations is no different than any other law,” Sen. Jerry Moran, Kansas Republican and senior appropriator, told The Washington Times.
“Having said that, we ought to work to find ways to eliminate wasteful, unnecessary programs,” he said. “There’s plenty of things we could find with an administration that’s interested in reducing spending and the intrusion of government that we ought to do.”
Last year, Mr. Trump released a video detailing his plan to stop unnecessary spending through impoundment. This requires overturning the 1974 law limiting presidential authority to ignore congressionally directed spending.
He reposted the video on social media soon after his Nov. 5 election victory.
“This disaster of a law is clearly unconstitutional, a blatant violation of the separation of powers,” Mr. Trump said. “When I return to the White House, I will do everything I can to challenge the Impoundment Control Act in court and, if necessary, get Congress to overturn it. We will overturn it.
“I will then use the president’s long-recognized impoundment power to squeeze the bloated federal bureaucracy for massive savings,” he said.
Describing his ability to use impoundment as an “eventuality,” Mr. Trump said he would, on his first day back in the White House, “order every federal agency to begin identifying large chunks of their budgets that can be saved through efficiencies and waste reduction.”
Mr. Trump said the reductions would not target national defense programs, Social Security or Medicare.
“This is the only way we will ever return a balanced budget,” he said. “Bringing back impoundment will give us a crucial tool with which to obliterate the deep state, drain the swamp and starve the warmongers.”
Although Mr. Trump has not detailed what spending he would want to impound, he once said on the campaign trail that he would refuse to spend money from President Biden’s signature Inflation Reduction Act, which included appropriations for climate programs and IRS tax enforcement.
The Impoundment Control Act was enacted to clarify Congress’ constitutional power of the purse and codify impoundment restrictions after President Nixon’s repeated use of the authority led to various court challenges over withheld funds.
The law allows a president to temporarily delay obligated funds or propose a rescission to permanently eliminate an appropriation for savings efficiencies. Still, the president must notify Congress and explain the justification for an impoundment. In the case of rescissions, the law requires Congress to approve the president’s proposed spending cuts within 45 legislative days or the impounded funds must be released.
Rep. Michael Simpson, Idaho Republican and a senior House appropriator, told The Times he would “have a problem” with rolling back the Impoundment Control Act.
“I happen to agree with [the law], that if we appropriate the money that the administration’s job is to make sure that money is spent on the purposes that we appropriated it for and not to undermine what Congress has appropriated money for,” he said.
Other Republican appropriators said they prefer Congress to enact the spending cuts Mr. Trump wants so a battle over impoundments does not materialize.
“I’d be hopeful that Congress would make decisions that would make that kind of action less necessary,” Rep. Ben Cline, Virginia Republican, told The Times. “And if Congress can make the cuts ourselves, we should do it.”
House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole, Oklahoma Republican, said the Constitution gives Congress oversight over all federal spending, but he pledged to work with Mr. Trump to find reductions.
“We wouldn’t be in the majority without him, so we’re going to certainly try to work with the president,” Mr. Cole said. “We don’t want to be at odds with the president.”
Mr. Trump is building a team that supports his view on impoundments. He has tapped billionaire entrepreneurs Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to lead a Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which will examine ways to trim the federal bureaucracy and cut spending.
“Skeptics question how much federal spending DOGE can tame through executive action alone,” Mr. Musk and Mr. Ramaswamy wrote in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed. “They point to the 1974 Impoundment Control Act, which stops the president from ceasing Congress-authorized expenditures. Mr. Trump has previously suggested this statute is unconstitutional, and we believe the current Supreme Court would likely side with him on this question.”
DOGE will work closely with the White House Office of Management and Budget. Mr. Trump nominated Russell Vought, one of his OMB directors from his first term, to serve in the role again.
Mr. Vought is president and founder of the conservative think tank Center for Renewing America, which has published articles arguing that the Impoundment Control Act is unconstitutional. He has promoted his argument on his social media account.
“Impoundment is simply another word for the president’s Article II authority to implement spending measures enacted by Congress in a responsible manner,” Mark Paoletta and Daniel Shapiro wrote in a September article for the think tank.
They said the president is “far better equipped than Congress to manage the day-to-day expenditure of funds and can act quickly to remedy programmatic waste.” They also said impoundment is vital for the president “to oversee and control his subordinates.”
Mr. Paoletta, a Center for Renewing America senior fellow, served as OMB general counsel during Mr. Trump’s first term. He and Mr. Vought tried to use impoundments to execute Mr. Trump’s agenda, but they encountered issues because of the Impoundment Control Act.
In 2018, Mr. Trump sent a rescission package to Congress that passed the House but stalled in the Senate.
The OMB cited presidential impoundment authority in its 2019 decision to temporarily withhold security assistance funds to Ukraine. Mr. Trump’s first impeachment centered around that decision. House Democrats argued that Mr. Trump withheld the funding to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to dig up dirt on Mr. Biden, who was running against Mr. Trump for president at the time.
The Senate acquitted Mr. Trump of the impeachment charges, but the Government Accountability Office found that he violated the Impoundment Control Act.
“OMB’s justification for the withholding falls squarely within the scope of an impermissible policy deferral,” the GAO wrote in its report.
Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, cited Mr. Vought’s efforts to ignore the Impoundment Control Act in a statement opposing his nomination.
“Russ Vought is a far-right ideologue who has tried to break the law to give President Trump unilateral authority he does not possess to override the spending decisions of Congress,” she said.
Former House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, Maryland Democrat and a senior appropriator, told The Times that Democrats would “certainly” oppose any effort from Mr. Trump to flout the Impoundment Control Act.
“Trump has very little respect for the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and very little respect for the checks and balances that our founders thought were critical to prevent dictatorship, authoritarianism,” Mr. Hoyer said.
Mr. Trump’s effort to circumvent Congress on impoundments suggests he knows he may not have the votes to rescind many appropriations, even though the process for congressional approval allows the Senate to skirt the filibuster and pass rescissions with a simple majority vote.
Many Republicans who value the congressional power of the purse say they want to stick to regular order and follow existing laws to cut spending.
“It’s a difficult task to get votes to pass things here, but that’s the way the process works,” Mr. Moran said.
• Lindsey McPherson can be reached at lmcpherson@washingtontimes.com.
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