Sholeh: Who’s got America’s purse strings?
The U.S. Constitution makes it clear Congress has the “power of the purse” through Article 1, Sections 8 (tax and spend clause) and 9 (appropriations clause). That’s why for the most part, federal budgets run through Congress.
Agencies, the president, and other departments make annual requests which, combined with preexisting law and newly approved legislation, determine how much and where our tax money is spent.
That includes cuts. But …
Our next president has never been a business-as-usual kind of guy (unless you consider the unusual his brand of business-as-usual). He says he’s going to make an end run around Congress, making certain big spending cuts by impoundment.
What’s impoundment? In short, it’s when a president chooses not to spend the money Congress already appropriated.
Under the Constitution, the legislative branch makes spending laws/appropriates funds, but it’s the executive’s job to enforce it — or in this case, not enforce it. What makes impoundment controversial is the question of whether or to what extent a president can or should decline to enforce.
While it’s rare, it’s been done before. Jefferson declined to execute gunboat patrols along the southern coast while he negotiated the Louisiana Purchase with France.
According to historians, Nixon abused the privilege, using impoundment to end federal housing programs without congressional input and refusing to spend money allocated to clean sewage out of public water systems, despite a congressional override of his veto.
Is it legal? Yes, sometimes. After the Nixon example, Congress enacted the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 and created the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office to limit that power.
During his first term, President Trump tried impoundment to withhold funds to Ukraine. Ultimately, he was unsuccessful; the funds were released when the Government Accountability Office determined withholding them wasn’t legal, at least in that case.
Recently, the president-elect announced that he would use impoundment to “squeeze the bloated federal bureaucracy for massive savings.” Even Republican members of Congress have mixed feelings on this, sharing his desire to make cuts but uncomfortable with the method.
Mr. Trump has also said he intends to challenge the 1974 law, as well as general constitutional limits on impoundment, at the Supreme Court. The court has decided both ways on prior attempts to expand executive power, so while the court has a conservative majority, where they’ll fall on this one isn’t clear.
In light of this and other fundamental policy debates in recent years, America is going through evolutionary change that’s gradually shifting the balance of powers. It’s been a long time since such fundamental change in our young country’s history, so the results may feel very different than most of us can remember in our lifetimes.
Hang on. It’s becoming quite a ride.
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Sholeh Patrick, J.D. is a columnist for the Hagadone News Network. Email sholeh@cdapress.com.