Former President and 2024 Presidential Candidate Donald J. Trump announced a new plan aimed at curbing fiscal waste, controlling inflation, and “crush the Deep State.”
He plans to do this by reestablishing the executive branch’s impoundment authority.
“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,” President Trump proclaimed.
This process involves the President refusing to spend excess funds provided by Congress, instead returning the money to the general treasury, which could potentially lead to tax reductions.
The announcement came with the assurance that Trump’s plan would prompt the Executive and Legislative branches to cooperate to negotiate and gain better control over federal spending.
He vowed to utilize the “long-recognized Impoundment Power to squeeze the bloated federal bureaucracy for massive savings,” that would ultimately benefit taxpayers and help halt inflation while reducing the deficit.
The restoration of the Impoundment Power is not without controversy.
Since the passage of the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 (CBA), the President’s power to impound funds has been severely curtailed.
Trump, however, plans to challenge the constitutionality of these restrictions, deeming the Act as Congress’s usurpation of Executive Branch powers.
On the very first day of his administration, Trump intends to instruct federal agencies to identify potential savings through the Impoundment Power, while assuring that defense, Social Security, and Medicare funding levels would be maintained.
The former President also intends to work alongside Congress to overturn the constraints of the CBA, arguing that the Act tied the president’s hands, forcing them to spend all congressionally appropriated funds, regardless of necessity.
Trump asserts that while Congress holds the “power of the purse,” appropriations should only set a ceiling on federal spending, not a floor.
He also harked back to historical precedents, citing the use of the Impoundment Power by various administrations dating back to Thomas Jefferson.
Trump shared that Jefferson, Buchanan, Grant, Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, and Johnson, among others, all utilized impoundment to further national interests.
Since the implementation of the CBA, the former president contends that “wasteful overspending has exploded out of control,” contributing to a national debt that has skyrocketed from $475 billion and 31 percent of the GDP in 1974 to $30.8 trillion and 123 percent of the GDP today.
Under his plan, Trump promises that the restoration of the executive branch’s impoundment power will serve as an effective tool in the fight against fiscal waste.
In his view, the power to impound funds is not just a crucial fiscal instrument, but an integral component of the Constitution’s checks and balances system.
“We are going to get the Warmongers and the Globalists out of our government,” Trump stated. “With Impoundment, we can simply choke off the money.”
“This policy is anti-inflation, anti-Swamp, anti-globalist—and it’s pro-growth, pro-taxpayer, pro-American, and pro-freedom,” he went on to say. “I alone can get that done. I will get it done and Make America Great Again.”
