by Jonathan D. Salant The New Haven independent
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s efforts to impound $4.9 billion in congressionally approved foreign aid drew condemnation Friday from U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro and other lawmakers of both parties whose committees pass the annual federal spending bills.
“Instead of focusing on improving the lives of Americans, the president’s budget director is running around illegally stealing taxpayer funding in a unilateral, partisan act that excludes any cooperation with Democrats,” said DeLauro, Democrat of New Haven, who sits as the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee.
Federal law gives Congress 45 days to approve proposals by the president to cut funding, or else the money must be spent.
The announcement by Trump comes fewer than 45 days before the end of the fiscal year and the administration says that if Congress does not act by Sept. 30, the reductions automatically would take effect because the allocations would expire.
The Impoundment Control Act, enacted in 1974, requires the president to spend congressionally approved funding, unless lawmakers approve a White House request to cut specific expenditures within 45 days.
While Trump and Vought have contended that the law is unconstitutional, they have also said the law allows them to rescind funds without congressional approval if they submit the request less than 45 days before the end of the fiscal year.
DeLauro has accused Trump administration officials of violating federal law by not spending all of the money Congress has directed them to. She has been backed up by the Government Accountability Office, the watchdog and investigative arm of Congress.
“I refuse to label Vought’s gambit a ‘pocket rescission’ because it gives his unlawful attempt to steal the promises Congress enacted an air of legitimacy it does not deserve,” DeLauro said Friday.
“There is no inherent presidential power to impound; for almost 250 years of American history, only a couple of notably lawless executives have tested this theory, and they have been rejected in their attempts by the courts, the Congress, and the people.”
The outrage was bipartisan.
“Article I of the Constitution makes clear that Congress has the responsibility for the power of the purse,” said Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins, Republican of Maine. “Any effort to rescind appropriated funds without congressional approval is a clear violation of the law.”
Collins called the administration’s proposal “an apparent attempt to rescind appropriated funds without congressional approval.”
And the Senate committee’s top Democrat, Patty Murray of Washington, said Trump’s proposal was not “a get-out-of-jail-free card for this administration to simply not spend investments Congress has made.”
“No lawmaker should accept this absurd, illegal ploy to steal their constitutional power to determine how taxpayer dollars get spent,” she said.
The GAO has said that the Impoundment Control Act does not allow a president to run out the 45-day clock and therefore not spend the money without congressional approval because the allocation expired at the end of the current fiscal year.
Said DeLauro: “The president and OMB director have one very simple choice if they want to cut spending: come to Congress and request changes to the law. Absent congressional legislation, the Constitution and the rule of law require the administration to deliver to the American taxpayers the investments passed by both chambers of Congress and signed into law by the president. Anything else would be a betrayal of their oaths of office.”
House Republicans, angered by GAO’s opposition to Trump’s refusal to spend the funds approved by Congress, have sought to cut the agency’s budget in the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1 by almost half. The bill also would prevent the GAO from suing Trump to follow the Impoundment Control Act.