President Donald Trump's early moves to control spending test authority of Congress

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is moving quickly in his second term to expand his presidential reach, insisting that he has the authority to freeze and determine federal spending, an assertion Democrats called a "power grab" to erode Congress’ power of the purse.

A sweeping freeze on federal grants and spending the White House budget office issued Monday evening has since been rescinded amid public uproar. But Trump's early actions nonetheless have set up the latest legal fight with his opponents over the limits of his presidential authority.

Trump has argued he has power over government spending and since his Jan. 20 inauguration has signed a flurry of executive orders aimed at reshaping federal policies and spending to align with his priorities, including eliminating DEI and other progressive programs.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) claimed a victory in the first fight of Trump's new term over control of federal spending.

"Donald Trump tried a total budget power grab," Schumer told Newsday in a phone interview. "But when the American people see what's going on and we made our voices heard, Trump had to back off."

Congressional Republicans this past week were largely supportive of the funding freeze and have said Trump should have more authority over the nation’s purse strings.

"The Office of Management Budget's review of certain spending priorities should be seen for what it is: good governance," said Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), the House majority whip.

"I for one am glad to have a president in the White House who is delivering on his promise to get our fiscal house in order as we stare down $36 trillion in debt," Emmer said at the end of a House Republican retreat held at Trump’s Doral, Florida, golf resort.

Rep. Nick LaLota (R-Amityville) said Trump could count on his support to defund certain foreign aid; funding for some nongovernmental organizations; diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives; and the Green New Deal.

"There's a lot of cutting to do," LaLota said.

Legal battles

Legal experts and policy analysts interviewed by Newsday said Trump appears to be teeing up a legal battle in a bid to overturn the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, which requires the president to spend Congress’ appropriations or seek its permission to halt funding.

Trump and his White House Office of Management and Budget nominee Russell Vought have long said the 50-year-old act Congress, passed to stop President Richard Nixon from impounding federal funds, is unconstitutional.

"What's happening here is just the beginning of this tug-of-war between the legislative branch and the executive branch, a historic debate about who controls the fiscal purse strings," said G. William Hoagland, a former longtime budget expert for Republicans in Congress and now senior vice president at the nonprofit Bipartisan Policy Center.

"No question that the Constitution's Article 1 Section 9 makes it very clear that no money shall be spent but by appropriations made by law," Hoagland told Newsday in a phone interview.

The freeze on federal grants prompted immediate blowback, followed by confusion.

After an outcry by groups relying on federal funds, the White House Office of Management and Budget said Monday that it had rescinded the memo.

But, sparking uncertainty about the trillions of dollars in federal funding, White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt insisted the memo’s withdrawal was "NOT a rescission of the federal funding freeze."

Meanwhile, two federal judges put a temporary hold on the federal funding freeze in response to lawsuits filed this week by nonprofit groups and 22 states contending his actions violate the Constitution’s grant of the power to tax and set spending to Congress.

On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan in Washington D.C. granted an administrative stay of the OMB memo freezing federal funding in a case filed by nonprofit groups until she holds a hearing on Monday morning.

And on Friday, U.S. District Judge John McConnell in Providence temporarily blocked the Trump administration from freezing federal loans, grants and other financial assistance to 22 states, barring the budget office order issued Monday night.

McConnell issued the temporary restraining order in response to a case filed by New York Attorney General Letitia James and attorney generals from 21 other states and the District of Columbia as he considers whether to issue a longer preliminary injunction.

Schumer said Democrats are bracing for Trump to continue testing the Impoundment Control Act, which a Democratic controlled Congress passed after Nixon refused to spend nearly a third of the discretionary spending Congress had approved.

"What they're going to do is going to be illegal, and we will be able to block it. We'll try to block it legislatively. We'll try to block it out in the sticks politically, but we'll also try to block it legally, judicially," Schumer said.

The act requires presidents to file a rescission resolution if they want to withhold funding. Once a resolution is filed, Congress has 45 days to vote on the president’s request. If no vote is held, the funding remains intact.

In 2018 during his first term, Trump sent a rescission resolution to Congress that proposed to block $14.8 billion in spending for 34 appropriation accounts. But Congress did not approve it, according to the Government Accountability Office, and Trump didn’t challenge that in court then.

David Super, an administrative and legislative law expert at Georgetown Law in Washington, D.C. called the freeze Trump ordered "a big overreach." He said the Supreme Court already has upheld the Impoundment Control Act twice.

He said, "I think the question is: Will they be satisfied with retreating to more legally defensible positions or are they going to rise or fall on this, as with the Muslim ban in the first Trump administration?"

OMB chief

Trump’s push to wield more power over federal spending got a boost Thursday, when Senate Republicans advanced the nomination of Russell Vought to serve again as director of the Office of Management and Budget for a full floor vote.

Vought played a significant role in the Heritage Foundation’s "Project 2025," the hard-line conservative guidebook of policy initiatives Trump sought to distance himself from during the presidential campaign. He has long opposed the Impoundment Control Act.

In his Senate confirmation hearing, Vought said: "The president ran on the notion that the Impoundment Control Act is unconstitutional. I agree with that."

Hoagland said he suspects that Vought will issue impoundments of Congressional appropriations, like happened in Trump's first term, but this time will challenge it in court.

"Will he submit that rescission resolution to follow through with those decisions, or will he simply impound it and say, 'See you in court?' Hoagland said. "And we'll test out the constitutionality of the Impoundment Control Act."

Shawn Donahue, a political science professor at the University at Buffalo, said while Trump is pushing for more authority over spending, he could be opening the door for a future Democratic president to wield that same power.

"Whenever you give power to a president or Congress or whomever, and it's your party," he said, "you have to remember that you're likely giving that to the president or the Congress next time the opposing party is in power."