Trump's Trials - Can the president override Congress on spending? It depends on 'impoundment'

Episode Date: February 27, 2025

Can the president spend less money than congress directed be spent? It comes down to a legal question around what's known as impoundment. Support NPR and hear every episode sponsor-free with NPR+. Sign up at plus.npr.org.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

It's Trump's Terms from NPR. I'm Scott Dadfrow. We're going to be doing all sorts of things nobody ever thought was even possible. It's going to be a very aggressive first hundred days of the new Congress. An unpredictable, transformative next four years. The United States is going to take off like a rocket ship. Each episode we bring you NPR's coverage of President Trump acting on his own terms. And that means sometimes doing things that no American president has tried before. NPR is covering it all in stories like the one you are about to hear right after this.

May Martinez. President Trump has been trying to not spend money that Congress has already directed the government to spend. Whether he can do that comes down to something called impoundment. Sarah Gonzales with our Planet Money Podcast has more. Let's start with what is likely the most high-profile instance of a president impounding or withholding money. In 1803, with Thomas Jefferson, Congress was worried that the U.S. might have to go to war with France on the Mississippi, so it appropriated up to $50,000 to build 15 gunboats. Congress met once a year back then,

and after they met, the U.S. bought Louisiana from France and a bunch of other land, the Louisiana Purchase. So France was no longer going to be on the Mississippi, and Jefferson thought that the threat had disappeared, says Zachary Price, a law professor at UC Law San Francisco who has looked at historical impoundment practices. So he didn't spend the money, didn't build the ships, he didn't build all of them and then just told Congress in his annual message when they came back. Trump's team has specifically pointed to this gunboat example to say, see, the president does have the power to not spend.

But here's the thing about this gunboat example. The law just said you can spend up to X amount on this purpose. But the law didn't say you must spend at least this much. It said no more than. Yeah, baked into the law, it was optional. And historically, Zachary says presidents were not making the argument that they have the constitutional power to override Congress and impound funds. He says presidents would more just convince Congress to let them not spend.

Like there was spending for rivers and harbors that Ulysses S. Grant thought was wasteful. There was money for a weapons program that John F. Kennedy didn't want to spend after World War II. In both cases, Congress gave in to the presidents. There weren't really any rules around impoundment until Richard Nixon, because Nixon was using impoundments as like a broader policy tool, withholding money for policies he disagreed with. At one point, Nixon impounded more than a third of all discretionary spending, and a

bunch of people and states who were expecting the money that Nixon withheld sued. In one case, the Supreme Court ruled that the total amount that Congress had appropriated for sewage treatment plants had to be spent. Not just any amount, the total amount, the justices said, because that was the language of the law. Now, when the Trump administration started attempting to freeze federal funds that go to states for everything from new school buses to medical research, to some, it was not a Thomas Jefferson-style saving money on some Mississippi gunboats kind of empowerment. It was more like what Nixon tried to do.

But what the Trump team is arguing that Nixon's team did not argue in court is that the president should have this special power to not spend. They're saying, yes, there's a ceiling on spending, but they don't think there's a floor. This is like what the argument is, right? Like the ceiling is there, don't spend more, but is the floor there? Yeah, the floor is there in the laws that say you must spend this money. David Super is a law and economics professor at Georgetown University. And in the Constitution, it says you must take care that the laws be faithfully executed. You're not taking

care that the laws be faithfully executed if the law says spend a million dollars and you refuse to do so. Multiple judges have ruled that the Constitution does give Congress the power to set even a spending floor. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who Trump appointed, wrote as an appellate judge that even the President does not have unilateral authority to refuse to spend. Trump's legal team has countered that the Supreme Court hasn't provided the final word on whether a president has inherent constitutional empowerment power. They say even that one Nixon ruling was more specific to the particulars of Nixon's case. Sarah Gonzalez, NPR News.

Before we wrap up, a reminder, you can find more coverage of the Trump administration on the NPR Politics Podcast, where you can hear NPR's political reporters break down the day's biggest political news, with new episodes every weekday afternoon. And thanks, as always, to our NPR Plus supporters who hear every episode of the show without sponsor messages. You can learn more at plus.npr.org. I'm Scott Detrow. Thanks for listening to Trump's terms from NPR.