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In the article I wrote for the American Mind a few weeks ago about what Trump ought to do on Day One in office was this:

With excessive government spending having reached a crisis point, President Trump ought to mount a frontal challenge to our profligate Congress by impounding some spending in defiance of the 1974 Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act. (For starters, I nominate impounding State Department grants for gender studies programs in Pakistan—such a grant was actually included in the COVID relief bill of 2021.) This act opened the floodgates to uncontrolled spending and expanded the power of the administrative state; even Congress itself seldom complies with its terms. There is a good argument that the act is unconstitutional, but even if Trump loses a legal fight it is a great public battle to pick and a means of putting Congress on the defensive.

Our friends at Issues & Insights had a great piece earlier this week showing just how much the Budget Impoundment and Control Act, passed in an act of vengeance against Richard Nixon during the Watergate frenzies, has contributed to runaway spending, and seconding my view that Trump ought to challenge it:

Last year, President-elect Donald Trump said that “For 200 years under our system of government, it was undisputed that the president had the constitutional power to stop unnecessary spending through what is known as impoundment.”

Since he’s been elected, he’s given every indication that he intends to reclaim this power. Indeed, the success of his “Department of Government Efficiency” run by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy depends heavily on Trump being able to spend less than Congress appropriates.

This, of course, has the left freaking out. The grumblers say that Trump’s refusing to spend money Congress has authorized would be “unprecedented” and “a devastating power grab” that would “flip the power of the purse” and give Trump “authoritarian control” over the government.

There are just two big problems with these assertions. The first is that presidential impoundment dates back to the very beginnings of the nation. The second is that letting presidents impound funds appears to have been an effective tool for keeping federal spending under control.

Impoundment is just a jargony word for instances where Congress appropriates a certain amount of money for a program in a given year, and the president refuses to spend all of it.

A research paper published by the Center for Renewing America (CRA) provides a long and detailed historical account of impoundment, including its roots in English law and its use by presidents – Democrats and Republicans – throughout the nation’s history.

And here are the receipts: