Why this Nixon-inspired law says Trump can't freeze federal funding

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Axios

10 hours ago


President Trump ordered a temporary pause on federal grant, loan and financial assistance programs this week — but lawmakers and legal experts say the move is illegal, as he needs Congress' approval to suspend funding.

The big picture: The freeze that a federal judge on Tuesday temporarily halted could face trouble in Congress, where Democrats have indicated a lawsuit is forthcoming.

Republicans largely back the Trump administration move. But in the House, where Republicans hold a slim majority, Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) has publicly expressed reservations about the freeze.

The situation has echoes of the 1974 Impoundment Control Act, which restricts a president from cutting funding without the approval of Congress.

The law that passed after then-President Nixon canceled billions in spending could serve as a roadmap for what's to come with the Trump administration's order.

What is the Impoundment Control Act of 1974?

The Impoundment Control Act of 1974 requires the president to submit a request to Congress to withhold funds.

Congress then has 45 days to decide whether to approve the president's request. It can also choose how much of the funding to rescind.

If Congress doesn't act within that time period, the funds must be spent.

Read more: https://www.axios.com/2025/01/29/trump-federal-funding-freeze-nixon-law

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The funding freeze has since been rescinded within the past hour but as the article notes - a President can't "cancel" or "reprogram" funding that Congress authorizes and appropriates WITHOUT the approval of Congress. I wish the media would stop wholesale accepting whatever comes out of 45 as "gospel" and bring someone on staff who is familiar with federal administrative law so that gets included in their reporting FROM THE START. The federal government is NOT a "for-profit business" and all these crap EOs are treating it like it is.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

1. MaddowBlog-With chaotic freeze gambit, the Trump White House shows its incompetence (again)

On the one hand, Team Trump is launching legally dubious power grabs and wreaking havoc. On the other hand, these guys have no idea what they’re doing.
https://bsky.app/profile/stevebenen.com/post/3lgv4ypo7t22y

Remember eight years ago, when Trump launched an ugly and poorly thought-out Muslim ban, sparking outrage, bureaucratic chaos, family hardships, and messy legal fights?

Eight years to the day later, he did it again with an ugly and poorly thought-out spending freeze.

Link to tweet

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/chaotic-freeze-gambit-trump-white-house-shows-incompetence-rcna189776

Exactly eight years to the day later, Trump’s budget office ordered a freeze to federal grants, loans and related assistance — money that Congress has already appropriated — effectively trying to transfer the power of the purse away from lawmakers. A massive national freak-out soon followed, with widespread confusion and chaos, even among the administration’s allies, about how to implement the White House’s policy.

With just minutes remaining before the freeze was scheduled to take effect, U.S. District Court Judge Loren AliKhan agreed to halt the process. NBC News reported:

A federal district judge on Tuesday granted an administrative stay in a case challenging the Trump administration’s planned freeze of federal aid, pausing the plan for a week and setting a hearing for further arguments Monday morning. The order applies only to the pause of disbursements in open grants, Judge Loren AliKhan said. And it doesn’t get into the legality of the freeze; instead, it gives her time to hear more fleshed-out arguments from a coalition of nonprofit groups about why she should issue a temporary restraining order that could block the freeze for an additional two weeks.

......It began with a terribly written memo from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which The New York Times’ Jamelle Bouie accurately described as “delusional.” White House officials spent much of the day insisting that it was perfectly clear, and news organizations were to blame for any confusion, but many of those same White House officials struggled badly to answer specific questions about the details of the policy — most notably related to the impact on Medicaid beneficiaries. (“I’ll check back on that,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters at her first briefing.).....

In case that weren’t quite enough, the White House also spent much of the day defending the freeze by referencing the “Green New Deal,” which is a broad progressive agenda that, in reality, never actually passed — and therefore can’t be defunded.

The resulting image was unsettling. On the one hand, the president, his political operation and his policy team are engaged in ugly and legally dubious power grabs, wreaking havoc as part of a radical scheme to transform the American system.

On the other hand, these guys still don’t know what they’re doing. As The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank summarized in his latest column, “In just eight days on the job, Trump has taken a wrecking ball to the federal government, and he and his aides apparently couldn’t be bothered to give any thought to the damage and chaos that would ensue.”

TFG is a very stupid person. His staff is just as incompetent as the idiots who tried to do a Muslim ban 8 years ago

[Omnipresent]

2. I never knew Nixon's misadventures would help derail trump.

I’m glad his screw up, caused trump a smack down in federal court.