The alarming new power Trump will claim in a second term
Judd Legum
Jul 9
Donald Trump says that if he returns to the White House in 2025, he will have the power to effectively cancel any federal program — or even an entire agency — by refusing to spend money appropriated by Congress.
Trump made the extraordinary announcement on the policy section of his presidential campaign website, Agenda47. In a video, Trump says that the president has "the Constitutional power to stop unnecessary spending through what is known as Impoundment."
According to Trump, if Congress appropriates money that he decides is unnecessary, he has the authority to "refuse to waste the extra funds." This is known as "impoundment."
The last president to claim the authority to impound Congressionally-appropriated funds was former President Richard Nixon. In the 1970s, Nixon unilaterally canceled billions in spending "for highways, water pollution, environmental assistance, drug rehabilitation, public housing, and disaster relief." Nixon's impoundment of Congressionally-appropriated funds was challenged frequently — and often successfully — in court.
But, to remove any doubt, Congress passed the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, which prohibits the president from impounding funds without Congressional approval. The Impoundment Control Act is consistent with the Justice Department’s views of presidential impoundment under Nixon and former President Ronald Reagan. In 1969, then-Assistant Attorney General (and future Chief Justice of the Supreme Court) William Rehnquist wrote that "the suggestion that the President has a constitutional power to decline to spend appropriated funds" is "supported by neither reason nor precedent." In 1988, then-Assistant Attorney General Charles Cooper declared that "[t]here is no textual source in the Constitution for any inherent authority to impound." Cooper noted the president is obligated to "faithfully execute" the law, not ignore it.
Trump, however, has decided that the Impoundment Control Act is unconstitutional and has pledged to challenge it in court. Trump says he will use his self-proclaimed impoundment authority on "Day One" and order "federal agencies to identify portions of their budgets where massive savings are possible through the Impoundment Power." Trump says he will use impeachment to "crush the Deep State."
In his statement, Trump claims that "[l]eading constitutional scholars agree that impoundment is an inherent power of the president." None of those scholars are named.
The implications of Trump's claimed authority are enormous. For example, Trump has said he wants to "abolish the Department of Education." It would be extremely difficult to get Congress, even if it were under full Republican control, to approve such a deeply unpopular plan. Now, Trump is claiming the power to eliminate the Department of Education unilaterally by cutting off its funding.
Trump is also reportedly considering using impoundment to eliminate "green energy subsidies approved by President Biden as part of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act and funding for the World Health Organization."
How Trump violated the Impoundment Control Act in his first term
In 2019, the Trump administration withheld "$214 million appropriated to DOD for security assistance to Ukraine." Trump was impeached for this decision after it was revealed that the delay in distributing funds was part of an effort to pressure Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden and his family.
In 2020, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that Trump violated the Impoundment Control Act by withholding the appropriate funds. "Faithful execution of the law does not permit the President to substitute his own policy priorities for those that Congress has enacted into law," the GAO said.
The Project 2025 connection
Reviving presidential impoundment is a priority of Russ Vought, Trump's director of the Office of Management and Budget. The day before Trump left office, Vought wrote a letter to Congress claiming the Impoundment Control Act "is an albatross around a President's neck, disincentivizing the prudent stewardship of taxpayer money and inviting detractors in Congress to second-guess complex program implementation decisions."
Vought is a key author of Project 2025, the radical blueprint for a second Trump administration. He wrote Project 2025's chapter on the Executive Office of the President of the United States. Vought is also spearheading Project 2025's 180-day "playbook" for Trump — a document that will not be released publicly. If Trump wins another term, Vought is considered a top candidate to be the next White House Chief of Staff.
A self-described Christian nationalist, Vought currently leads the Center for Renewing America (CRA). On June 24, CRA produced a lengthy white paper promoting impoundment. The paper claims that laws passed by Congress create "a ceiling on Executive spending, not a floor" and that Congress cannot "compel the President to expend the full amount of an appropriation."
Vought favors circumventing Congress to impose a far-right ideological agenda. "What we’re trying to do is identify the pockets of independence and seize them," Vought told the New York Times.
Vought says that Trump is being open about his plans for impoundment and other unilateral executive actions "to later be able to claim a mandate." But, even though Trump first announced his views on impoundment a year ago, it's unlikely many voters know about the issue or its implications. The issue has received scant coverage in major media outlets.
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