The presentation, obtained by The Washington Post and other news outlets, outlines in new detail how the White House could revive an obscure and controversial power known as impoundment, potentially allowing Trump to cancel federal funds as he sees fit.Under a law enacted in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal, the president may invoke that authority only in limited cases with clear notice to Congress. But the slide deck suggests Trump officials may seek to trigger a court case that could declare that law unconstitutional, ultimately enabling Trump to reduce or eliminate entire funding categories on his own.
If there is to be any chance of saving the United States from the debt default that is otherwise coming on down the tracks like a freight train, Presidents will need to recover that power. Contra the Post, impoundment doesn't take away Congress' power of the purse -- only Congress can appropriate money, not Presidents. It does provide a check on that power, which Congress has been using ruinously for decades. Such checks and balances are a normal feature of the constitutional system.
The Post also fails to note that this power was used first by Thomas Jefferson, and then by every president for over a century. It's the normal way our system has operated, in other words; it was cut off by statute as part of the fight against the hated Richard Nixon. The statute probably isn't constitutional, and certainly an originalist jurist will find much to support in an argument that the power was historically and widely used for a very long time.
Nor is this a terribly controversial thing to think: "Most recent presidents supported the restoration of the impoundment power, including Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump. Politicians such as John McCain, John Kerry, Al Gore, Pat Buchanan, Jeb Hensarling, Russ Feingold, Joe Lieberman, Judd Gregg and Paul Ryan also supported the restoration of the power."
It does suggest that the 'Anarcho-Capitalist' Argentina is behind these and also the personnel moves, which are designed to break the power of the administrative state and the spendthrift legislature so that the country can resume a sustainable financial course. Argentina is doing great, by the way.
4 comments:
There's no reason to take what the newswriters at WaPo write seriously.
Aside from that bit of minorness, most of the kerfuffle over Trump's move to freeze current spending and lending is just more artificial angsty bodice-ripping.
The EO, since rescinded, impounded nothing at all. It froze for 90 days that spending and lending. Whether the temporary freeze was itself necessary to conduct the review that was the freeze's purpose is a separate question, although there's no doubt in my pea brain that freezing the problem while the problem's review proceeded certainly would have facilitated a cleaner and more efficient review.
Eric Hines
If I I understand correctly the EO was not rescinded. What was rescinded was a memorandum about how to implement the EO, replaced with another that just instructed them to reach out if there was any confusion about how to implement it. The press seemed to think that the order was withdrawn, rather than just the instruction manual.
You may be right.
What also was not rescinded was the requirement to conduct the review and to report back with concrete recommendations.
Eric Hines
Trump can audit where that money went and how it got spent after it arrived there. Lots of NGO graft and foreign aid that can be clawed back that way. He can also veto a budget to send the Congress a message.
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