In a move that could give President Donald Trump more freedom to enact his agenda, Republicans are attempting to repeal a law that ties the hands of presidents who don’t want to spend particular funding appropriated by Congress.
Known as impoundment, the practice of declining to spend funds provided by Congress dates back to President Thomas Jefferson.
Since 1974, however, it has been tempered by the Impoundment Control Act (ICA).
Republicans in the House and Senate now want to repeal the ICA.
Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) introduced Senate and House versions of their bill striking down the Watergate-era act.
House Appropriations Committee Democrats say that some of Trump’s executive orders violate the ICA by calling to delay funding to programs Congress enacted under President Joe Biden.
Clyde told The Epoch Times in an email he was hopeful he and his 25 original cosponsors in the House would offer “a strong, unified defense of President Trump’s constitutional impoundment authority.”
Lee told The Epoch Times in an email that the proposed repeal would “help restore the original separation of powers intended by the Founders.”
Defenders of impoundment trace it to Article II of the Constitution, which states the president “shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed.”
Lee described impoundment as “a longstanding presidential authority” used by presidents for more than a century and a half and grounded in the Constitution.
When it was passed in 1974, the ICA came alongside court decisions bearing on impoundment. All arose as President Richard Nixon sought to avoid spending water pollution funds allocated by Congress and to dismantle the Office of Economic Opportunity created by his predecessor.