Congress can allot all the money they want for their socialist schemes. That doesn’t mean that President Trump needs to spend it. The word for the week around Washington is “impoundment.” Democrats swear up and down that Trump can’t do what he plans because they put a law in place to stop Richard Nixon from doing it. Trump and his advisers are convinced that law happens to be unconstitutional and they’re planning to put it to the test. If it turns out that Democrats can make their law stick, conservatives have a back up plan.
Save taxpayer’s money
Democrats may have managed to provide money for a ton of their favorite pork, by stuffing it into appropriations bills, but it doesn’t need to be spent.
Progressives are convinced of the exact opposite but they may have a hard time making their partisan law stick. President Donald Trump has been throwing around a word which is incredibly vulgar to Democrats. “Impoundment.”
The concept rattles left-wing socialists so hard that they crafted a law specifically to prevent it’s use. They call it the “Impoundment Control Act.”
They don’t like any president being able to withhold money from their pet entitlement schemes. Trump and his rapidly forming cabinet envision using the concept to shrink “the federal government with or without congressional approval.”
In a video Trump recorded on the subject about a year ago, he “promised seizing control over spending from Congress would be a top priority if he was elected.” He doesn’t have to spend the money if he doesn’t want to. Democrats are turning purple.
They though they had that issue settled since 1974. The Constitution, they argue, “gives Congress the power of the purse.” That may be so but “the president is in charge of executing the law.”
Since Thomas Jefferson
An “impoundment” occurs “when Congress appropriates money that the president then declines to spend.” Between 1803 and 1974, that “occurred frequently in U.S. history.” Thomas Jefferson was the first to put the method to work. He “declined to buy gunboats to patrol the Mississippi.”
Following through with the deal would have mucked up negotiations with France over the Louisiana Purchase. If he spent the cash on warships the way he was supposed to, we wouldn’t have New Orleans today.
Nobody questioned a president’s right to exercise the option until Richard Nixon came along. Democrats were livid with him and claim he “abused the privilege.”
After winning reelection in 1972, “Nixon planned to use impoundment to achieve sweeping policy aims.” Just like Trump does. Nixon “wanted to halt federal housing programs, reduce disaster aid and more.” He did it by holding back the money.
Congress opposed his veto of the Clean Water Act of 1972 and overrode it. In retaliation, Nixon “used the power of impoundment to refuse to spend a good portion of the $24 billion in funds meant to help clean sewage out of municipal water systems.” Congress was furious enough to enact a law requiring presidents to spend every penny of the money they’re handed. The same law created the Congressional Budget Office.
The way Trump sees the current situation, the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 is “not a very good act.” The president controls spending the money for a reason. “This disaster of a law is clearly unconstitutional, a blatant violation of the separation of powers.” If the Supreme Court doesn’t agree with him, now that he has control of both the House and Senate, they could simply repeal the offensive law.
