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"The President decides..." within the limits of his constitutional powers. Which do not include, for example, impoundment or unilaterally shutting down agencies
by BryantD 2y ago
"The President decides..." within the limits of his constitutional powers. Which do not include, for example, impoundment or unilaterally shutting down agencies authorized by Congressional acts.
- lenerdenator 2y agoDepends on if anyone will do anything to stop him.
- rayiner 2y agoPeople are throwing around the word "impoundment" lately. But it has a very specific meaning, and no impoundment has happened.
- code_runner 2y agoonly because the courts stopped it
- BryantD 2y agoJudge John McConnell disagrees with you. His decision placing a hold on the spending freeze cites the Impoundment Control Act as part of his finding that the lawsuit is likely to succeed on the merits.
- jeltz 2y agoYeah, it is always fun when people here know more than supreme court judges about US law.
- BryantD 2y agoTo be fair, he's a district chief judge and I've certainly disagreed with some of them in the past. But at least it demonstrates that the question of impoundment is on the table.
- rayiner 2y agoThat decision applies to a very specific item: congressional appropriated federal support to states. Which is probably the strongest case for an impoundment argument.
- BryantD 2y agoYep. And certainly at the beginning of all this there was reason to think that this was happening. For example, Solar for All grants were paused with no explanation of why or the expected path for releasing them. So, yes, impoundment is a relevant term to use.
- Volundr 2y agoVirtually all of the spending through USAID was Congressionally authorized. Can you explain how blocking or delaying that spending fails to meet the definition of Impoundment? To say nothing the freezes that have been put on hold by the courts.
- rayiner 2y agoImpoundment is determined on the scope of a “program” for which appropriations have been made: https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/prelim@title2/chapter17B&edition=prelim https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/prelim@title2/chap.... If you think there’s a violation of the impoundment act, you need to identify what the “program” is and why you think the administration won’t spend the whole program amount within the relevant time period.