How Trump Plans To Seize The Power Of The Purse From Congress
Date
11/26/2024 10:11:51 AM
(MENAFN- Asia Times)
This article was originally published by ProPublica , a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom.
Donald trump is entering his second term with vows to cut a vast array of government services and a radical plan to do so. Rather than relying on his party's control of congress to trim the budget, Trump and his advisers intend to test an obscure legal theory holding that presidents have sweeping power to withhold funding from programs they dislike.
“We can simply choke off the money,” Trump said in a 2023 campaign video .“For 200 years under our system of government, it was undisputed that the president had the constitutional power to stop unnecessary spending.”
His plan, known as“impoundment,” threatens to provoke a major clash over the limits of the president's control over the budget. The Constitution gives Congress the sole authority to appropriate the federal budget, while the role of the executive branch is to dole out the money effectively. But Trump and his advisers are asserting that a president can unilaterally ignore Congress' spending decisions and“impound” funds if he opposes them or deems them wasteful.
Trump's designs on the budget are part of his administration's larger plan to consolidate as much power in the executive branch as possible. This month, he pressured the Senate to go into recess so he could appoint his cabinet without any oversight. (So far, Republicans who control the chamber have not agreed to do so.) His key advisers have spelled out plans to bring independent agencies, such as the Department of Justice, under political control.
If Trump were to assert a power to kill congressionally approved programs, it would almost certainly tee up a fight in the federal courts and Congress and, experts say, could fundamentally alter Congress' bedrock power.
“It's an effort to wrest the entire power of the purse away from Congress, and that is just not the constitutional design,” said Eloise Pasachoff, a Georgetown Law professor who has written about the federal budget and appropriations process.“The president doesn't have the authority to go into the budget bit by bit and pull out the stuff he doesn't like.”
Trump's claim to have impoundment power contravenes a Nixon-era law that forbids presidents from blocking spending over policy disagreements as well as a string of federal court rulings that prevent presidents from refusing to spend money unless Congress grants them the flexibility.
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