The Fallout From Trump’s Illegal Spending Freeze Is Just Beginning

Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. It bars the president from ever impounding “mandatory” spending, including health care programs and Social Security, that’s appropriated indefinitely. To get around these barriers, OMB asserted Tuesday that these rescissions were not “impoundments,” just a “temporary pause.” But the Impoundment Control Act expressly forbids even “temporary” halts to funding unless the president complies with its procedures.. OMB cannot get around the law by using a different label. That’s why, in 1988, the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel rejected the notion that the president has an “inherent, constitutional power to impound funds.” It explained: “The ‘existence of such a broad power is supported by neither reason nor precedent’ ”; in fact, the only Supreme Court decision on the matter suggests that the president is constitutionally required to “spend funds at the direction of Congress.” It is noteworthy that this conclusion came from Ronald Reagan’s Department of Justice and reaffirmed a position previously articulated by the conservative William H. Rehnquist during his time at the agency. Yes, this court has handed the president extensive discretion to fire his subordinates and broad immunity from prosecution when engaged in “official acts.” But impoundment is categorically different; it marks a radical attempt to restructure the government, wresting control over the budget from Congress and handing it over to a single man, who could withhold trillions of congressionally appropriated dollars according to his own whims.