Moreover, historical examples don't prove Congress lacks the power to stop impoundment, only that they forbore from exercising the power until passing ICA in 1974. Just like Congress in 1868 prohibited transfers of funds between agency accounts, which was common before then. 6/6
On the other side, the pro-impoundment people like Vought are overreliant on shaky history. Impoundment was extremely rare and historically limited to narrow cases like military acquisition 5/6
It's also really hard to define impoundment in principle. Figuring out which unspent money was done for bad reasons is tricky; I propose relying on Congressional purpose to draw some boundaries 4/6
Problems: (1) the CG is an agent of Congress per Bowsher, so this is likely unconstitutional (2) Republican-controlled Congress won't permit this (3) private parties can't sue because the CG lawsuit mechanism precludes a private right of action 3/6
The ICA makes it illegal for the President to impound funds without Congress' consent. If he does, the Comptroller General (!) who is the head of GAO is supposed to sue in federal court to force the funds' release. This has only happened once and the case was dropped 2/6
With the Trump admin making its first foray into impounding government funds, I have a new piece explaining the challenges of impoundment, including the major issues with enforcing the Impoundment Control Act.
www.yalejreg.com/nc/the-overl...
🧵 1/6
