From LawFare: Trump Is Usurping Congress’s Power of the Purse

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The Trump administration’s recent efforts to impound congressional appropriations create a fundamental challenge to Congress’s constitutional power of the purse (“No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law”). Unapproved rescissions and other tools have led to money no longer being available for its enacted purposes. While terms such as “impoundment” and “rescission” are not well known or understood by most people even within the federal government, much less across the country, the bottom line is that funding specified in legislation passed by elected representatives and signed into law by the president is increasingly at risk of not being spent consistent with the law.

Impoundment involves actions or inactions taken by the executive branch to preclude spending money designated by law for specific purposes (appropriations). The Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB’s) annual guidance to executive departments on budget preparations and execution (Circular No. A-11) previously defined impoundment as “any Executive Branch action or inaction that withholds or precludes the obligation or expenditure of budget authority.” However, OMB’s 2025 version of this circular issued by Director Russ Vought in August removed that definition, noting that, “The Impoundment Control Act of 1974 applies only to proposals to rescind funds and proposals to defer funds.”


- - Does the president have spending powers apart from Congress?

- - How have presidential attempts to expand spending powers been checked in the past?