Timothy Birdnow

A friend forwarded a message suggesting that Donald Trump has somehow outmaneuvered the Democrats with this "Covid Relief" bill. The arguement is that Trump, having signed the bill and simply lined out what he doesn't like, is now invoking the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, which it is claimed will allow him to edit the bill to his heart's content.

Wrong. The President does not have a line-item veto. It's not in the law. This is the equivalent of saying he has one and only Trump figured it out.

The ICA was put in place as a way to compel the President to spend money as Congress determined, not the other way around.

From Congress's own budget website:

Put simply, if the President wants to spend less money than Congress provided for a particular purpose, he or she must first secure a law providing Congressional approval to rescind the funding in question. The ICA requires that the President send a special message to Congress identifying the amount of the proposed rescission; the reasons for it; and the budgetary, economic, and programmatic effects of the rescission. Upon transmission of such special message, the President may withhold certain funding in the affected accounts for up to 45 legislative session days. If a law approving the rescission is not enacted within the 45 days, any withheld funds must be made available for obligation.

A 2018 Government Accountability Office legal opinionholds that if the President proposes a rescission, he or she must make the affected funds available to be prudently obligated before the funds expire, even if the 45-day clock is still running. This means, for example, that the President cannot strategically time a rescission request for late in the fiscal year and withhold the funding until it expires, thus achieving a rescission without Congressional approval.

Deferrals

The ICA defines a "deferral” as withholding, delaying, or – through other Executive action or inaction – effectively precluding funding from being obligated or spent. The ICA prescribes three narrow circumstances in which the President may propose to defer funding for a program: (1) providing for contingencies; (2) achieving budgetary savings made possible through improved operational efficiency; and (3) as specifically provided by law.

The ICA requires that the President send a special message to Congress identifying the amount of the proposed deferral; the reasons for it; and the period of the proposed deferral. Upon transmission of such special message, the funds may be deferred without further action by Congress; however, the deferral cannot extend beyond the end of the fiscal year in which the special message is sent. The ICA language on deferrals is long-standing budget law that allows the Executive branch to delay the obligation or expenditure of funding only for the specified reasons rather than policy reasons.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 08:53 AM | Comments (13) | Add Comment
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