President Donald Trump’s administration is considering a move that would unilaterally rescind federal funding without requiring congressional approval.
“It’s very possible that we might use pocket rescissions,” Office of Management and the Budget Director Russ Vought told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday.
Using a “pocket rescission” would allow Trump to effectively cancel congressionally appropriated spending with no input from Congress, where such cuts can be a difficult sell. Critics argue that it represents an overreach of executive power. Vought indicated the administration disagrees.
“It’s one of our executive tools; it’s been used before. The Government Accountability Office ... has said it was legal in the 1970s, and Congress has come along and said, ‘Hey, we have concerns with it.’ That is a fully legal approach to using the Impoundment Control Act, another law [we’re] not too big fans of, to use that to send up a rescissions bill at the end of the year and just have it evaporate at the end of the year.”
The law referenced by Vought, the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, defines the limits of presidential power over federal funding. It prohibits the president from unilaterally canceling funding from a policy or program for ideological or political reasons, a response by Congress to perceived overreaches by President Richard Nixon’s administration.
Trump and his allies have questioned the law’s constitutionality, given its attempt to set limits on the executive power through legislative means. They argue that this violates separation of powers principles and executive prerogative.
The bill requires the president to submit a request to cut spending that the administration thinks is no longer necessary or should otherwise be clawed back.
Congress is then given 45 days to respond to this request. If it doesn’t, then after 45 days, the funding is released, and spending on the impounded program resumes.
However, if a rescission request is submitted late in the fiscal year and the request’s expiration goes beyond the end of the fiscal year, which is Sept. 30, the executive branch can make the rescission go into effect without the approval of lawmakers.
Trump signed a $9 billion rescissions package on July 24 that Congress passed just hours before the July 18 deadline.
It is expected that there will be more rescissions requests from the administration. However, pocket rescissions remain a live option under consideration.
Steven Taylor, a political science professor at American University in Washington, told The Epoch Times that this “accomplishes two objectives” for Trump and the GOP.
“(1) it avoids any stonewalling by the Democrats in Congress, and (2) it is a way for Republicans in Congress to avoid having to defend unpopular cuts to their constituents. With pocket rescissions, members of Congress do not have to worry about their fingerprints being seen on cuts that might damage their image among voters,” Taylor said in an email.
Vought has said that a “pocket rescission is no different than a normal rescission, except for the timing of when it occurs.”
Critics say that a pocket rescission is a way to circumvent Congress and the rescissions process.
“Pocket rescissions are not a deliberate feature of the impoundment and rescissions process. They are instead an effort to evade the clear intent of that process as established by statute. I don’t believe it is explicitly illegal, because there is nothing in the text that explicitly forbids this practice. But it’s an attempt to evade the clear intent of the law, and so legally very suspect,” David Bateman, an associate professor of political science at Cornell University, told The Epoch Times.
“Trump’s consideration of pocket rescissions reflects two current realities. The first is that he only has nominal control of Congress, even though the Republican Party currently has a majority in both chambers. Trump, for that reason, tries to bypass congressional approval whenever possible,” Richard Bensel, a professor in the Department of Government at Cornell, told The Epoch Times.
“The second is that Trump’s general intention is to expand the powers of the presidency generally,” he continued. “This is just one more area in which he might expand presidential discretion.”
Were a pocket rescission to occur, the courts would likely get involved. Devin Watkins, an attorney at the right-leaning Competitive Enterprise Institute think tank, told The Epoch Times that this seems to be the administration’s ultimate goal.
Bateman said it’s unlikely the courts would allow for a pocket rescission to take shape.
“That’s because it is incompatible with the clear intent of the statute, as well as with the broader constitutional principles that the president take care to follow the law and that Congress has the power of the purse,” he said.
“After all, the ‘pocket veto’ that this is analogized to is clearly specified by the text of the Constitution. This is not only not specified in the statute but goes against its clear intent. And so it still seems plausible that lower courts will not allow this,” Bateman added.
Taylor said that “there may be some district and circuit court judges who object on valid constitutional grounds,” but the Supreme Court will allow it.
BOOKMARKS
After months of negotiation, Trump said on July 27 that he reached a trade deal with the European Union,” The Epoch Times’ Jacob Burg reported. “We have good news. We have a deal,” Trump announced alongside European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in Scotland.
Twenty-four opposition lawmakers and a mayor survived Taiwan’s recall vote on July 26, The Epoch Times’ Tom Ozimek reported. It leaves the Kuomintang on track to maintain its legislative majority and hands President Lai Ching-te’s ruling party a setback.
Oil pipeline operators are praising high-tech innovations—and, The Epoch Times’ John Haughey reported, saying they reduce the need for expansive government red tape. Industry representatives tell Congress a reauthorized pipeline safety bill should be swiftly adopted “without major changes or new mandates.”
