Rep. Andrew Clyde Introduces Bill to Restore Trump's Impoundment Authority to Slash Spending

President-elect Donald Trump is preparing to wage war over his constitutional impoundment authority, and Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA) is leading the congressional advance.

Clyde introduced legislation Monday to repeal the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, an obscure law likely to become a focal point in Trump’s battle with the Swamp. Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) is introducing companion legislation in the Senate.

Most Americans are unfamiliar with impoundment, but that is likely to change as Trump and his allies set the Richard Nixon-era law in their sights.

“Rolling back the unconstitutional Impoundment Control Act is one of the most effective ways Congress can help President Trump in the fight to deliver the spending cuts and government efficiency that the American people overwhelmingly voted for,” said Clyde in a statement.

Impoundment is a power enumerated in in Article II of the Constitution permitting a president to decline to spend the full amount of funds that Congress appropriates – essentially, the founders intended congressionally appropriated funds to present a ceiling, not a floor.

The Georgia Congressman and many top Trump allies argue presidential impoundment authority is necessary to get the country back on sound fiscal footing.

Russ Vought, Trump’s nominee to return to lead the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), has called restoring presidential impoundment authority “a necessary remedy to fix our fiscal brokenness.” Vought, who through his outside group the Center for Renewing America has advocated cutting trillions of dollars in federal spending, will be a central figure in the Trump administration’s fight against the spending status quo.

Presidents exercised their constitutional impoundment authority for nearly 200 years until the Watergate scandal, when Congress scrambled to pass the Impoundment Control Act – at least partly as a public relations effort to insulate itself from the growing scandal.

The detrimental law is unconstitutional and must go, Clyde says.

“The Impoundment Control Act of 1974 has unjustly complicated the President’s constitutional impoundment authority for far too long,” Clyde said. “Every President from George Washington to Richard Nixon possessed this tool to cut wasteful spending until the ICA purported to divest the President of this critical power. In the fifty years since, America’s national debt and Washington’s spending habits have soared out of control. We must defend the presidential power of impoundment to get America’s fiscal house back in order.”

Trump himself has argued for impoundment during his trademark rallies. He and his allies seem determined to use it.

Ed Martin, president of Phyllis Schlafly Eagles and incoming chief of staff at OMB, said during a recent appearance on Breitbart News Daily that “it’s a lie to say that when Congress says spend a million dollars, you have to spend it,” adding “Congress wants you to spend a million because they got 100 buddies of theirs at the trough.”

“The Founding Fathers intended” presidents to use the authority, Martin said, explaining that federal departments waste money at the end of the fiscal year on “cars and computers because they don’t want their budget to show that they didn’t spend it.”

If Trump tests the limits of his impoundment authority, it would almost certainly lead to a legal battle before the Supreme Court, which has never directly addressed the issue.

“The left is going to go crazy,” Martin said. “They’re going to litigate it, and we’re going to win. But in the interim, we at OMB can stop the money, so you’re not going to see money go to — millions of dollars to, you know, random left-wing DEI causes at our embassies overseas.”

This court has generally balked at attempts to limit executive authority, although Trump would likely prefer Congress repeal the 1974 law outright instead of litigating the issue.

Trump made slashing wasteful spending and eliminate unnecessary bureaucracy throughout the federal government a central component of his campaign. He has tapped Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to lead the Department of Government Efficiency, an outside group to highlight budgetary line items, programs, and even entire departments that should be reformed or axed altogether.

Republicans are on board with Trump’s plans – or at least want to be seen as such, with DOGE caucuses already popping up on Capitol Hill.

But with spending, Republicans tend to talk a big game in the minority while passing on hard decisions once actually holding power, as they will in the next Congress.

With impoundment authority restored, Trump and future presidents can reverse the debt-ballooning and deficit-busting habits of the past several decades. A restoration also could force Congress to take the lead in making cuts to prevent the executive branch from making the decisions on which areas to target.

That’s an incentive likely envisioned by the founders.

To be sure, Congress will have an almost immediate opportunity to begin making cuts on its own – although Trump and his team will have significant input with Republican majorities in the House and Senate.

By Friday, Congress must punt the current government funding deadline (again) with a continuing resolution expected to last 90 days or so to mid-March (that deal has not yet been struck by Congressional leaders). And only six months later, by September 30, 2025, the deadline to pass legislation funding the government for the next fiscal year hits, providing another opportunity for Congress to flex the power of the purse.

Congress also is expected to use budget reconciliation, a prime opportunity to institute budgetary reforms, and the debt limit must be raised at some point next year.

If past is prologue, a coalition of Republicans and Democrats will block any meaningful spending reforms pushed by conservatives.

The impoundment issue might ultimately be decided by the courts, but Clyde’s bill will provide legislative pressure and could force Republicans to go on the record to show voters where they stand on the issue.

To be sure, all signs show Trump will elevate the impoundment battle to the forefront and waste little time doing it.

“I believe that the loss of impoundment authority — which 200 years of presidents enjoyed — was the original sin in eliminating the ability from a branch on branch to control spending,” Vought told Fox Business this year, “and we’re going to need to bring that back.”

Original cosponsors of Clyde’s House bill are Reps. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), Dan Bishop (R-NC), Lauren Boebert (R-CO), Tim Burchett (R-TN), Eric Burlison (R-MO), Byron Donalds (R-FL), Bob Good (R-VA), Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Clay Higgins (R-LA), Mary Miller (R-IL), Alex Mooney (R-WV), Barry Moore (R-AL), Troy Nehls (R-TX), Ralph Norman (R-SC), Chip Roy (R-TX), Tom Tiffany (R-WI), and Randy Weber (R-TX).