• A group of Republicans recently introduced a bill to repeal the Impoundment Control Act.
• It would hand Trump more control over government spending — he could even unilaterally cut it off.
• Several Republicans who backed the bill told BI they're fine with giving up congressional power.

Ahead of President-elect Donald Trump's return to the White House, some Republicans on Capitol Hill are ready to do something unusual: Relinquish some of their own power over federal spending.

More than 20 Republicans cosponsored a bill this month that would repeal the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, or ICA, a Watergate-era law that requires the president to spend all of the money that Congress approves. In the absence of that law and subsequent court rulings, the president would have the power to spend less money than what Congress decides — or refuse to spend money on certain programs altogether.

That would bring a massive power shift from the legislative to the executive branch, upending a balance between the two that's existed for 50 years. Some Republicans on Capitol Hill say it's their best hope of enacting spending cuts and reducing the national debt, given Congress's history of inaction and what they view as their colleagues' unwillingness to reduce spending.

"I think the spending is just out of control, and I think Congress is gutless," Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee told Business Insider. "I just don't think we're capable of making changes without some other interference, whether it be the executive branch or the voters."

"If the power is reducing expenditures, then I'm all for it," Rep. Eric Burlison of Missouri told BI. "Something has to be done."

"You look at where we are in this country, why not give him that power?" Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina told BI, referring to the country's fiscal situation. "At this point, I'm willing to take that risk. Anything can be abused. I can drink too much water, and suffer from it."

The Trump-Vance transition did not respond to a request for comment.

'We can simply choke off the money'

Trump is no stranger to impoundment — his first impeachment was triggered by his refusal to deliver aid to Ukraine. As he's mounted his third presidential bid, Trump has argued that the ICA is unconstitutional and should be done away with, either via congressional repeal or via the courts.

"With impoundment, we can simply choke off the money," Trump said in a 2023 campaign video. "I alone can get that done."

As Trump has staffed up his administration, he's appointed staunch proponents of impoundment to key positions. That includes Russell Vought and Mark Paoletta, who have been nominated to their previously held roles of director and general counsel of the Office of Management and Budget, respectively.

The president-elect's allies have argued that impoundment is a constitutional power that all presidents hold, owing to the president's duty under Article II of the US Constitution to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed."

They also point out that for roughly 200 years before 1974 — when Congress passed the ICA as President Richard Nixon refused to spend money on programs he disagreed with — presidents of all stripes have used impoundment for a variety of reasons, including policy disagreements.

"When Congress passes a spending bill, we pass a ceiling," Rep. Andrew Clyde, the Georgia Republican who introduced the ICA repeal bill, told BI. "It's not a floor and ceiling put together at one number."

More recently, impoundment has been embraced by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, whose "Department of Government Efficiency" initiative aims to enact trillions of dollars in cuts to federal spending. The duo have publicly agreed with Trump's argument that the ICA is unconstitutional, and the topic arose when they visited Capitol Hill to speak with Republicans earlier this month.

"I look at it as a tool of saving money, and being more efficient," Clyde said. "That's what the American people literally demanded in this election."

'Maybe this is too broad'

There are plenty of opponents of impoundment on Capitol Hill, including among Republicans. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the incoming GOP chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, has told reporters that she's opposed to repealing the ICA. And it's not just Trump skeptics who are uneasy with it.

"If it's something that further weakens Congress' ability to do its job the way they should be, then I'm going to look at that real carefully," Republican Rep. Mark Amodei of Nevada told BI in November.

Key Democrats, meanwhile, have expressed opposition to Trump's impoundment plans. Rep. Brendan Boyle, the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, released a fact sheet making a case against impoundment.

"The legal theories being pushed by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are as idiotic as they are dangerous," Boyle said in a statement. "Unilaterally slashing funds that have been lawfully appropriated by the people's elected representatives in Congress would be a devastating power grab that undermines our economy and puts families and communities at risk."

Republican skepticism, along with Democrats' likely opposition to any effort to give Trump more spending power, could make repealing the law via Congress an uphill battle.

The president-elect said in the 2023 video that he "will do everything I can to challenge the Impoundment Control Act in court," queueing up what would be a high-stakes legal fight early in his second term.

What remains unclear is exactly how expansively Trump would try to use impoundment. For some of the Republicans who support the effort, it's merely about spending less than what's necessary. Others warn that Trump could use that power in a retributive way, denying federal funding to states and localities over policy disagreements.

Even those who've cosponsored the ICA repeal bill expressed some ambivalence about its potential implications.

"Maybe this is too broad. I don't know," Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona told BI. "But I can tell you this: if you have a president who says 'I don't need 10 billion, I need 2 billion,' then I would like them not to spend that 8 billion. That's really kind of what the objective is, I think."

• Trump wants the power to refuse to spend federal dollars that Congress has already approved.
• He's pledged to challenge a Nixon-era law that constrains the president's "impoundment" powers.
• Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have endorsed this approach as a way to implement their DOGE cuts.

President-elect Donald Trump and his allies have long signaled that if elected to a second term, he would seek to reduce the constraints that presidents typically face when carrying out their agenda.

That vision is already beginning to take shape, with Trump's recent demand for recess appointments signaling a desire to bypass the Senate's role in confirming his nominees. But the president-elect doesn't just want more control over staffing. He also plans to try to assert his power over government funding by simply refusing to spend money that has already been approved by Congress.

It's called "impoundment," and it's been mostly illegal for the president to do since 1974, when Congress passed the Impoundment Control Act after President Richard Nixon refused to spend congressionally approved funds on programs that he personally opposed.

But in an June 2023 campaign video, Trump argued that the law is unconstitutional and pledged to "do everything I can to challenge" the law in court and "if necessary, get Congress to overturn it."

If Trump successfully pushed for the elimination of that law, he could gain unilateral power to defund vast swaths of the federal government, refuse to dole out foreign aid, or withhold federal funds to pressure others to bend to his will.

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, the co-leads of a newly announced "Department of Government Efficiency," wrote in a joint op-ed on Wednesday that they "believe the current Supreme Court would likely side with" Trump and declare the law unconstitutional. Impoundment has been floated as one way that Trump could singlehandedly enact DOGE's recommended cuts to the federal budget.

Meanwhile, lawmakers on Capitol Hill — including those on the House and Senate Appropriations Committees that control government spending — don't seem concerned about Trump's impoundment power grab just yet.

"I'm going to have to get back to you on that one," Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia told BI. "I haven't dreamed about impoundment, and haven't really focused on it, so I don't know."

"To be honest with you, I've not really followed it very closely," Republican Rep. Robert Aderholt of Alabama told BI, later adding in a statement issued via a spokesman that he "would be happy to work with" Trump on fixing what he calls a "broken" budget process.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, told BI that Trump "doesn't have the constitutional authority" to impound funds, but said that her "first order of business" is dealing with an upcoming government funding deadline.

'The Congress can't just be pushed aside'

Trump's quest for impoundment powers will likely engender resistance, at least from Congress. Funding the government has long involved a complex set of negotiations between Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate, and spending bills typically contain a broad range of provisions designed to satisfy different groups of lawmakers. If Trump could tinker with those arrangements unilaterally after the fact, it would represent a significant shift in power away from the legislative branch.

"If it's something that further weakens Congress's ability to do its job the way they should be, then I'm going to look at that real carefully," Rep. Mark Amodei, a Nevada Republican who serves on the House Appropriations Committee, told BI. He added that there "would be a problem" if Trump tried to impound funding approved by both chambers of Congress.

"The Congress can't just be pushed aside," said Rep. Joe Morelle of New York, a Democratic member of the committee. "I would hope that we wouldn't allow ourselves to be pushed aside, but we'll see."

But Trump is also dealing with a far more obedient GOP than he was during his first term, and even Republican appropriators aren't fully ruling out impoundment. Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma, the Republican chairman of the committee, has characterized impoundment as a "tool in the toolbox" for Trump, according to The Washington Post.

What Trump could do with such sweeping powers

Even if Congress won't grant Trump impoundment powers, he has another potentially more attractive avenue — the courts.

It remains an open question whether the Supreme Court would ultimately side with Trump and strike down the law, granting him the sweeping power to cancel government funding at his behest.

"I think we're always very mindful of the fact that this court has broken tradition on a whole host of issues, whether it's reproductive rights or immunity," said Morelle. "When we talk about how the American people have not elected a king — we don't have a sovereign — this is what we're talking about."

In general, Trump and other GOP supporters of impoundment have primarily described it as a means to simply reduce government spending that he considers wasteful.

"If it takes fewer resources to implement a program than what was appropriated, an agency should not be forced to waste taxpayer dollars," Mark Paoletta, a GOP lawyer who served in the Trump administration's Office of Management and Budget, co-wrote in a June op-ed. "If there is room for savings in federal programs, why should the president be restrained from ordering agencies to shrink the size of the federal government?"

But there's also concern that Trump could use that power in a more punitive way, withholding funds set aside for projects in individual lawmakers' districts in order to punish them for crossing him. Daniel Schuman, a Congress expert and the Executive Director of the American Governance Institute, laid out a variety of scenarios in a July op-ed.

"The President's not supposed to be a super-legislator in that way," Schuman told BI in a recent interview. "The President shouldn't be able to blackmail members of Congress."

Trump-Vance Transition spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt did not address BI's inquiry as to whether Trump might pursue such punitive measures, merely saying in a statement that the president-elect has "a mandate to implement the promises he made on the campaign trail" and that "he will deliver."