The political arms race at the heart of the government showdown

From targeted impoundments of clean energy funds to proposed mass rescissions of recent bipartisan spending bills, Trump and his Republican allies have been testing the limits of presidential budget power. And this time, the strategy is chilling the entire budget process.

One reason Congress has yet to pass a government funding bill is that many Democrats fear that Trump will simply withhold or claw back the money. After all, he has done so before. Why negotiate line items when the other team plans to rip them out after a deal is inked?

It is the latest escalation in a political arms race where shutdowns, continuing resolutions, and debt ceiling brinkmanship are routine. But presidential impoundments aren’t just clever political tools. They are a direct challenge to the Constitution’s separation of powers.

And they aren’t at all new.

Presidents have been withholding funds since the early days of the republic. Thomas Jefferson delayed the construction of gunboats in 1803. Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Harry Truman regularly impounded funds during World War II. Even Dwight Eisenhower, a fiscal conservative, quietly held back highway funding when inflation soared. Courts and Congress mostly looked the other way—so long as the executive branch was seen as acting in good faith, or for technical or fiscal reasons.

But by the time Richard Nixon entered office in 1969, impoundments weren’t just about efficiency. They were about power. Nixon used impoundments as a political bludgeon, withholding billions in federal funding for programs he personally opposed. In one case, he refused to distribute housing funds because he believed cities were using them poorly. In another, he held back environmental and public health funds—despite clear congressional intent to spend them.

The tipping point came when Nixon impounded funds for a water pollution program that Congress had passed over his veto. In response, Congress passed the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974, a sweeping reform that created the modern budget process and explicitly stripped the president of unilateral impoundment power. From then on, presidents had to request rescissions from Congress—essentially asking permission to withhold funds after they had been included in an appropriations bill. If Congress didn’t approve the request within 45 days, the money had to be spent as intended.

Trump’s first term tested the limits of those reforms. In 2019, his administration delayed over $200 million in congressionally appropriated military aid to Ukraine. The hold was done behind closed doors, without a rescission request, and in direct violation of the Impoundment Control Act, according to the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office. (This later became a central issue in Trump’s first impeachment.)

Now, Trump and his allies are going further. In recent months, the Republican-controlled House has passed more than $9 billion in rescission bills to repeal Inflation Reduction Act climate funds, Internal Revenue Service enforcement budgets, public broadcasting, and pandemic-era infrastructure spending. Few of these bills have a shot at passage in the Senate, where Democrats would need to agree to them. But they send a clear message: If Trump wins, expect a wave of impoundments and rescissions—legal, semi-legal, or otherwise.

That prospect isn’t theoretical. It is shaping budget negotiations in real time. Why would Democrats agree to fund clean energy projects now if they think Trump will cancel them later? As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities put it, “withholding funds as a political tactic is illegal, and undermines the entire appropriations process.” But without clear enforcement, it may prove be irresistible.

The Constitution is unambiguous: “No money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.” That is Article I, Section 9—the bedrock of Congress’s power of the purse. It isn’t optional. It isn’t advisory. It is how we prevent a president from becoming a king.

But like many parts of the Constitution, it only works if Congress enforces it.

The 1974 reforms were a bipartisan effort to reassert that authority after Nixon’s abuses. Today’s Congress should follow that example. That means tightening enforcement of the Impoundment Control Act. It means increasing transparency around budget execution. And it means reaffirming that a president cannot simply ignore appropriations he doesn’t like.

If lawmakers are serious about protecting their institution—and the balance of powers—it’s time to prepare for the next round of executive overreach. Trump didn’t invent impoundments. But he has made them central to his agenda. And unless Congress draws a clearer line, future presidents—of both parties—will follow his lead.

The power of the purse doesn’t belong to presidents. It belongs to the people, through their elected representatives in Congress. And if Congress won’t defend it, they shouldn’t be surprised when presidents keep taking it.

About the author: Casey Burgat is the director of the legislative affairs program at George Washington University’s Graduate School of Political Management. He is author of We Hold These “Truths”: How to Spot the Myths that are Holding America Back.

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