NBC News - The Trump administration on Monday asked the Supreme Court to allow the government to withhold $4 billion of spending on foreign aid that was approved by Congress. The move came in response to a federal judge's ruling last week that requires the administration to spend the funds despite President Donald Trump notifying Congress that he intends not to.
The case marks a showdown over to what extent the president can refuse to spend money that Congress has appropriated, a brewing issue as Trump has embraced a sweeping view of presidential power since taking office again in January.
In the new filing, Solicitor General D. John Sauer described the case as raising “a grave and urgent threat” to the power of the presidency.
Under the Constitution, it is the job of Congress to allocate funds that the president can spend....
Current federal funding expires on Sept. 30. The Trump administration has said it wants to withhold $4 billion in foreign aid, but will spend another $6.5 billion that Congress appropriated.
The dispute involves a law called the Impoundment Control Act, which was passed in 1974 to regulate the president’s control over the budget. That followed efforts by then-President Richard Nixon to withhold spending on programs he did not support.
On Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit declined to block Ali's decision, prompting the Trump administration to turn to the Supreme Court.
Congress.Gov - Historically, most impoundments were noncontroversial, primarily undertaken to manage expenditures or effect savings. In the 1970s, however, President Richard Nixon asserted the authority to act on his own to withhold funds or curtail programs he opposed. This assertion was challenged in the courts in a number of suits to compel the release of impounded funds or require the Administration to carry out statutory duties that would result in the expenditure of funds.
Congress ultimately responded by enacting impoundment control legislation as Title X of the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 (P.L. 93-344). The Impoundment Control Act (ICA) amended the Antideficiency Act to limit its use for impounding funds and divided impoundments into two categories: deferrals, which provide for a temporary delay of spending, and rescissions, which provide for the permanent cancellation of spending. In doing so, it also provided a statutory framework for the President to submit them to Congress for further action. The act also made special procedures available to allow Congress to consider presidential proposals to delay or rescind budget authority expeditiously.
Enactment of the ICA made two fundamental changes to codify the limits of presidential discretion with respect to impoundments.
Prior to the enactment of the ICA, there was no express statutory limit on the length of time the President could withhold appropriated funds. Under the ICA, however, whenever a President wishes to permanently withhold funds from obligation, he must submit a special rescission message to Congress. Under the ICA, funds can be withheld from obligation for a period of 45 days of continuous session (as defined in the act) after the receipt of this special presidential message. After this period, funds withheld under this authority must be released for obligation unless Congress has completed action on a bill to rescind the budget authority. If the President proposes to defer obligating funds, he must send a special message justifying the deferral. The Comptroller General of the Government Accountability Office (GAO) is granted responsibilities in the act to oversee and enforce executive branch compliance.
Second, the ICA established legislative procedures that the House and Senate can choose to use to facilitate their consideration of legislation to enact rescissions proposed by the President. These procedures include limits on debate time, which effectively eliminates the need to invoke cloture to reach a final vote on the bill. These expedited procedures are available only during the period when funds may be withheld from obligation. The procedure in the ICA, however, is not the exclusive means for considering rescissions, nor is there any requirement that the House or Senate must use this procedure (or any other) to consider rescission requests transmitted by the President. Congress has used this procedure infrequently, and as a consequence there are few precedents or examples to guide its interpretation and application.
Although the House and Senate have infrequently considered rescission bills under the terms of the expedited procedure in the ICA, Congress regularly considers rescissions—both those requested by the President and those initiated by Congress—in other measures. The most frequent consideration of rescissions occurs in the context of general appropriations bills, but rescissions have also been included in measures solely comprising rescissions or in legislation including other provisions, such as the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 (P.L. 118-5)
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