January 16, 1973
Page 1149
By Mr. ERVIN (for himself, Mr. ROBERT C. BYRD, Mr. EASTLAND, Mr. CHURCH, Mr. JACKSON, Mr. FULBRIGHT, Mr. MONDALE, Mr. RANDOLPH, Mr. MCGOVERN, Mr. BIBLE, Mr. WILLIAMS, Mr. SPARKMAN, Mr. EAGLETON, Mr. TALMADGE, Mr. MAGNUSON, Mr. HARTKE, Mr. METCALF, Mr. HUGHES, Mr. HUMPHREY, Mr. CRANSTON, Mr. HOLLINGS, Mr. PELL, Mr. CANNON, Mr. BURDICK, Mr. MCINTYRE, Mr. INOUYE, Mr. HATHAWAY, Mr. HART, Mr. McGEE, Mr. CHILES, Mr. HASKELL, Mr. HATFIELD, Mr. DOMENICI, Mr. MUSKIE, Mr. BROOKE, Mr. MATHIAS, Mr. BAYH, Mr. SYMINGTON, Mr. JAVITS, Mr. RIBICOFF, Mr. GRAVEL, Mr. MOSS, Mr. WEICKER, Mr. CLARK, and Mr. NELSON):
S. 373. A bill to insure the separation of Federal powers and to protect the legislative function by requiring the President to notify the Congress whenever he impounds funds, or authorizes the impounding of funds, and to provide a procedure under which the Senate and House of Representatives may approve the President's action or require the President to cease such action.
Referred to the Committee on the Judiciary; and, by unanimous consent, if and when reported by that committee, to the Committee on Government Operations.
IMPOUNDMENT CONTROL
Mr. ERVIN. Mr. President, on behalf of 45 other Senators and myself, I introduce for appropriate reference a bill to protect the legislative function by requiring the President to notify the Congress whenever he impounds or terminates or authorizes the impounding or termination, of a Federal program, and to provide that the President shall cease such impounding at the expiration of 60 calendar days unless the Congress shall approve his action by concurrent resolution.
The bill also establishes a procedure whereby the Senate and House of Representatives can approve each impoundment reported by the President – an action which would be required in order for the impoundment to continue beyond 60 calendar days after it is reported to the Congress.
Mr. President, this bill is very similar to a bill (S. 2581) I introduced during the 92d Congress, on September 27, 1971. I believe the new bill is an improvement over the earlier version.
Within a few weeks, the Judiciary Subcommittee on Separation of Powers, of which I am honored to serve as chairman, will conduct hearings on this bill, in conjunction with an ad hoc subcommittee of the Committee on Government Operations. I sincerely hope that the bill can be ready for consideration by the Senate before the heat of summer has beset the Nation's Capital.
The impoundment control bill is the outgrowth of hearings conducted in March 1971, by the Subcommittee on Separation of Powers, on the constitutional issues raised by the practice of Executive impoundment of appropriated funds. The bill I introduce today will provide a practical and reasonable solution to the issues raised during those hearings and during the intervening time.
Testimony and materials adduced at the subcommittee's hearings revealed that over $12 billion in appropriated funds were being impounded by the President at that time. Since then, President Nixon has asserted that he will keep Federal spending within a $250 billion ceiling by impounding funds appropriated above that limit. Already we have seen the termination of several agricultural programs, including the rural environment assistance program and emergency disaster loans to farmers. More than likely the list of impounded and terminated programs will grow. These actions are being undertaken with no prior approval by the Congress, which, pursuant to its constitutional responsibility, created and funded the programs in the first place.
While I would be the last to advocate deficit financing by the Federal Government – in fact, I always have been in favor of a balanced Federal budget – this series of Executive actions demands the immediate attention of the Congress and swift remedial action. In my capacity as chairman of the Subcommittee on Separation of Powers, I have come to realize that the Congress cannot long survive as a viable institution if it does not develop the capacity to gather, retrieve, and analyze budgetary data and to exert control over the budgetary powers. The power of the purse is one of the most basic powers of the legislative branch, and if it is not exercised in a decisive and fiscally responsible manner, the Congress itself may rightfully be accused of abrogating its role under the separation of powers doctrine. While I feel that on occasion the Congress has indeed been a spendthrift and has appropriated money in an irresponsible manner, I do not believe that the President's impoundment of the amounts appropriated constitutes a cure for our Nation's fiscal and economic woes. Impoundment does not save anybody any money, nor does it lead to lower taxes. It is merely a means whereby the White House can give effect to the social goals of its own choosing by reallocating national resources in contravention of congressional dictates. In any event, the President's motive, however worthy, cannot legalize an inherently unconstitutional act.
Reserving of appropriated funds, that is, not spending an entire appropriation, is not a new concept, and when undertaken in a lawful manner it may be quite useful in effecting economy.
Various procedures have been used over the years, the most common being the reserving of funds to prevent deficiencies in a Federal program, or to effect savings in accordance with provisions of the Anti-deficiency Act (31 U.S.C. 665). Freezing of funds has occurred when Congress, for some special reason such as war or economic uncertainty, passes appropriations as nothing more than ceilings for expenditures, leaving it to the executive branch to expend part or all of the funds at its discretion. Moreover, freezing may occur as the result of a specific congressional mandate. Under any of these forms of impoundment, the executive branch is permitted – or required – to withhold funds under certain specified conditions.
Unfortunately, impoundment often occurs under circumstances where the executive branch, for reasons of its own, desires to avoid expending funds which the Congress has explicitly directed to be spent for some particular purpose. It is this situation which poses a threat to our system of government and which so patently violates the separation-of-powers doctrine.
One example of an impoundment which flies directly in the face of expressed congressional intent is the withholding from obligation of more than $5 billion in the Highway Trust Fund. On January 2 of this year 17 other Senators joined me in filing an amicus curiae brief in the case of Missouri Highway Commission against Volpe. The U.S. District Court on June 19, 1972, held in that case (347 F. Supp. 951) that the Secretary of Transportation and the Director of the Office of Management and Budget do not have discretion, under the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 as amended, to impound Highway Trust Fund moneys except for very specific reasons. The district court's decision was based on language in the Federal-Aid Highway Act, and it is a more narrow case than if it involved a general appropriations act. This case was argued on January 10, 1973, before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in St. Louis, and is pending decision by that court. If the Missouri Highway Commission wins this case, it should establish the precedent that Congress can mandate the expenditure of funds by inserting language to that effect in the particular appropriations act. We eagerly await the decision of the court.
Neither I nor my many colleagues who are cosponsoring this bill desire that the executive branch expend the taxpayers' money foolishly. Nor is this a partisan problem, for impoundment had occurred under Democratic and Republican administrations; it is as objectionable under one as under the other. After all, we are concerned with maintaining the constitutional role of the Congress and not with the performance of either political party. The Congress must not become a stepchild of the Executive, and the Presidency must not be allowed to assume the powers of a divine monarchy.
Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the impoundment practice is that it enables the President to effect an item or line veto. Such a power clearly is prohibited by the Constitution which empowers the President to veto entire bills only. By impounding appropriated funds, the President is able to modify, reshape, or nullify completely laws passed by the legislative branch, thereby making legislative policy – a power reserved exclusively to the Congress. Such an illegal exercise of the power of his office violates clear constitutional provisions. The bill I introduce today will give the Congress a chance to override this illegal and absolute veto and will give the Congress an opportunity to review its choice of priorities and rearrange them if changed conditions make such action desirable. However, that is not the task of the President under our Constitution.
In this era, the powers of the executive branch have become dominant in the operation of the governmental structure. The "power of the purse" is one of the few remaining tools which Congress can use to oversee and control the burgeoning Federal bureaucracy. Congress is constitutionally obligated to make legislative policy, and is accountable to the citizens for carrying out that obligation. The impoundment practice seriously interferes with the successful operation of that principle and places Congress in the paradoxical and belittling role of having to lobby the Executive to carry out the laws it has passed.
The impoundment control bill provides that the President must cease a specific impoundment unless he receives the approval of the Congress. It requires the President to notify each House of the Congress by special message of every instance in which he impounds or authorizes an impoundment by any officer of the United States. Each special message must specify, first, the amount of the funds impounded; second, the date on which funds were ordered to be impounded; third, the date the funds were impounded; fourth, any account, department, or establishment of the Government to which the impounded funds would have been available for obligation except for the impoundment; fifth, the period of time during which the funds are to be impounded; sixth, the reasons for the impoundment; and seventh, the estimated fiscal, economic, and budgetary effects of the impoundment.
The reporting provisions of the bill are identical to those of Senator HUMPHREY's amendment to the Debt Ceiling Act of 1972, and I believe that they strengthen the impoundment control bill.
The bill also provides that the special messages submitted by the President be published in the Federal Register, and it requires the President to publish in the Federal Register a list of funds impounded as of the first of each calendar month. These provisions are designed to keep the Congress and the American people informed. about the status of impounded funds, for a lack of up-to-date information has been a major impediment to solving the impoundment problem.
The bill further provides that the President shall cease the impounding of funds specified in each special message within 60 calendar days of continuous session after the message is received by the Congress unless the specific impoundment shall have been ratified by the Congress by concurrent resolution in accordance with a procedure based on provisions of the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1970 and set forth in the bill. Such concurrent resolution will be privileged business, and it will be considered promptly and with a reasonable period for debate. Such concurrent resolutions would not be referred to committee, for the appropriate authorizing committee and the appropriations committee already would have considered thoroughly the considerations underlying the original authorization and appropriation of the funds.
The bill also contains a definition of "impounding of funds" which is intended to include every instance of impounding, withholding, delaying the expenditure or obligation of funds, or the termination of authorized projects or activities. The definition includes "any type of executive action which effectively precludes the obligation or expenditure of the appropriated funds." The intent is to preclude any form of executive action affecting appropriated funds from escaping the scope of the bill through semantic gyrations.
Hearings on the "impoundment control bill" will be held on January 30 and 31 and February 1 and 6.
Mr. President, I send the bill to the desk, and ask unanimous consent that its text appear in the RECORD following these introductory remarks.
There being no objection, the bill was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
S.373
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That
(a) whenever the President impounds any funds appropriated or otherwise obligated for a specific purpose or project, or approves the impounding of such funds by any officer or employee of the United States, he shall, within ten days thereafter, transmit to the Senate and the House of Representatives a special message specifying–
(1) the amount of the funds impounded;
(2) the date on which the funds were ordered to be impounded;
(3) the date the funds were impounded;
(4) any account, department, or establishment of the Government to which such impounded funds would have been available for obligation except for such impoundment;
(5) the period of time during which the funds are to be impounded;
(6) the reasons for the impoundment;
(7) to the maximum extent practicable, the estimated fiscal, economic, and budgetary effect of the impoundment.
(b) Each special message submitted pursuant to subsection (a) shall be transmitted to the House of Representatives and the Senate on the same day, and shall be delivered to the Clerk of the House of Representatives if the House is not in session, and to the Secretary of the Senate if the Senate is not in session. Each such message shall be printed as a document for each House.
(c) A copy of each special message submitted pursuant to subsection (a) shall be transmitted to the comptroller General of the United States on the same day as it is transmitted to the Senate and the House of Representatives.
(d) If any information contained in a special message submitted pursuant to subsection (a) is subsequently revised, the President shall transmit promptly to the Congress and the Comptroller General a supplementary message stating and explaining each such revision.
(e) Any special or supplementary message transmitted pursuant to this section shall be printed in the first issue of the Federal Register published after that special or supplemental message is so transmitted.
(f) The President shall publish in the Federal Register each month a list of funds impounded as of the first calendar day of that month. Each list shall be published no later than the tenth calendar day of the month and shall contain the information required to be submitted by special message pursuant to subsection (a).
SEC. 2. The President shall cease the impounding of funds set forth in each special message within sixty calendar days of continuous session after the message is received by the Congress unless the specific impoundment shall have been ratified by the Congress by passage of a resolution in accordance with the procedure set out in section 4 of this Act.
SEC. 3. For purposes of this Act, the impounding of funds includes–
(a) (1) withholding or delaying the expenditure or obligation of funds (whether by establishing reserves or otherwise) appropriated or otherwise obligated for projects or activities, and the termination of authorized projects or activities for which appropriations have been made, and (2) Any type of executive action which effectively precludes the obligation or expenditure of the appropriated funds.
SEC. 4. The following subsections of this section are enacted by the Congress–
(a) (1) As an exercise of the rulemaking power of the Senate and the House of Representatives, respectively, and as such they shall be deemed a part of the rules of each House, respectively, but applicable only with respect to the procedure to be followed in that House in the case of resolutions described by this section; and they shall supersede other rules only to the extent that they are inconsistent therewith; and (2) With full recognition of the constitutional right of either House to change the rules (so far as relating to the procedure of that House) at any time, in the same manner, and to the same extent as in the case of any other rule of that House.
(b) (1) For purposes of this section, the term "resolution" means only a concurrent resolution of the Senate or House of Representatives, as the case may be, which is introduced and acted upon by both Houses before the end of the first period of sixty calendar days of continuous session of the Congress after the date on which the President's message is received by that House.
(2) The matter after the resolving clause of each resolution shall read as follows: "That the Senate (House of Representatives) approves the impounding of funds as set forth in the special message of the President dated , Senate (House) Document No. __ .
(3) For purposes of this subsection, the continuity of a session is broken only by an adjournment of the Congress sine die, and the days on which either House is not in session because of an adjournment of more than three days to a day certain shall be excluded in the computation of the sixty-day period.
(c) (1) A resolution introduced with respect to a special message shall not be referred to a committee and shall be privileged business for immediate consideration. It shall at any time be in order (even though a previous motion to the same effect has been disagreed to) to move to proceed to the consideration of the resolution. Such motion shall be highly privileged and not debatable. An amendment to the motion shall not be in order, and it shall not be in order to move to reconsider the vote by which the motion is agreed to or disagreed to.
(2) If the motion to proceed to the consideration of a resolution is agreed to, debate on the resolution shall be limited to ten hours, which shall be divided equally between those favoring and those opposing the resolution. An amendment to the resolution shall not be in order. It shall not be in order to move to reconsider the vote by which the resolution is agreed to or disagreed to, and it shall not be in order to move to consider any other resolution introduced with respect to the same special message.
(3) Motions to postpone, made with respect to the consideration of a resolution, and motions to proceed to the consideration of other business, shall be decided without debate.
(4) Appeals from the decisions of the Chair relating to the application of the rules of the Senate or the House of Representatives, as the case may be, to the procedure relating to a resolution shall be decided without debate.
Mr. ERVIN. Mr. President, I also ask unanimous consent that a statement prepared by the Senator from Wisconsin (Mr. NELSON) concerning the bill also be printed at this point in the RECORD.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so ordered.
SENATOR NELSON'S STATEMENT UPON INTRODUCTION OF THE IMPOUNDMENT PROCEDURES BILL
Over the years, a dangerous concentration of power has accumulated in the Presidency. This accumulation of executive control is most readily apparent in the practice of executive impoundment of Congressionally appropriated funds. This exercise of executive power over the public purse is a direct challenge to basic constitutional principles of the separation and balance of powers between the three coordinate branches of government. In particular, the exercise of impoundment gives the President an item veto prohibited by the Constitution as an infringement of legislative prerogatives.
There is agreement that the practice of impounding funds has been exercised by both Democratic and Republican Presidents. However, as Professor Arthur S. Miller of The George Washington University Law School pointed out in a letter to the Washington Post last October 26th, this Administration has elevated this practice to a favored mechanism of fiscal policy. Thus, Professor Miller shows that 1971 hearings before the Separation of Powers Subcommittee revealed:
"(a) more than $12 billion in appropriated funds were blocked by the White House (a sum far exceeding what any previous President has done; (b) that the Executive's spokesmen, including the present Associate Justice William Rehnquist and Caspar Weinberger (now head of OMB), could cite no express constitutional or statutory basis for it; and (c) most withholding in the past – which took a big jump under F.D.R.– dealt mainly with national defense appropriations (e.g. President Truman and the proposed 70-wing Air Force)."
There is also agreement that the legislative branch of the federal government has already ceded a great deal of authority over the national purse strings to the executive branch. In the Anti- Deficiency Acts of 1905 and 1906, the Congress gave the President authority to reserve appropriations in order to reflect savings in authorized programs and to prevent deficiencies from too rapid expenditure of funds. Then, under the pressures of national crisis – the Great Depression of the 1930's and later World War II – the principle of a difference between permissive and mandatory appropriations was asserted. In 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt claimed that just because Congress appropriated funds for certain governmental programs, this is only a ceiling on possible expenditures and "is not a mandate that such funds must be fully expended."
In addition to the impoundment of funds under so-called permissive appropriations, recent Presidents have been given express authority to withhold appropriated funds when certain conditions exist. Under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the President may refuse to expend funds in areas which practice discrimination.
The one area in which there appears to be a clear constitutional bar to unilateral Executive action and impoundment of appropriated funds without Congressional approval is where there is a clear Congressional "direction to spend". The distinction between "direction" to spend and "authorized" to spend was articulated in the 1962 controversy over the B-70 bomber between President Kennedy and Chairman Carl Vinson of the House Armed Services Committee. The President, opposing the program, requested the latter wording.
The lack of constitutional authority for the President to act contrary to the mandate of Congress and withhold legislatively appropriated funds whenever and wherever he pleases is equally clear.
In a memorandum dated December 19, 1969, by then Assistant Attorney General William H. Rehnquist, the Deputy Counsel to President Nixon was advised that "With respect to the suggestion that the President has a constitutional power to decline to spend appropriated funds, we must conclude that existence of such a broad power is supported by neither reason nor precedent."
Without reason or precedent, the President tried to force Congress last October in the Debt Limit Ceiling legislation to turn over a legislative grant of fiscal powers when he requested authority to cut the budget wherever he wished without even a token notification much less consultation with Congress. What no President is authorized to do under the Constitution, he requested the Congress to trade for a promissory note of confidence. Fortunately, the Senate rose to the occasion and, in a hopeful expression of support which was non-partisan and spanned the ideological spectrum, said "No deal! The Constitutional power over the purse given to Congress has already wandered too far down Pennsylvania Avenue."
It is time for Congress not only to resist further erosions of Constitutional powers, but to reassert itself in the determination of national fiscal policy and priorities and forcefully exercise what are properly Congress rights, duties and prerogatives.
A particularly striking case is the President's recent action cutting $6 billion in Federal water cleanup funds authorized by Congress over the President's veto in the Water Quality Act Amendments of 1972. These actions are environmentally unwise and economically unsound; they also go far beyond any discretion intended by the Congress when it thoroughly considered this measure, and specifically ignores an express Congressional mandate to allocate these funds to the States. Not only is this action an affront to serious efforts throughout the nation to comply with the national clean water program, it undermines every effort of Congress to set priorities for this country.
In order to regain an important measure of initiative in the determination of legislative policy, and to provide a more representative accounting to the public of the decision making process which enters into such policy, I am a co-sponsor of The Impoundment Procedures Bill developed by the distinguished Senator from North Carolina, Sam Ervin. Senator Ervin's leadership in asserting a revitalized role for the legislative branch under strict constitutional principles is acknowledged not only for its prescience, but for its persistence and its excellent advocacy.
The Impoundment Procedures Bill introduced today would require the President to transmit to the Senate and the House of Representatives a special message whenever the Executive branch has impounded funds appropriated by Congress or otherwise obligated for a specific purpose or project. Unless the specific impoundment is approved by Congress through the passage of a joint resolution to that effect within 80 days of continuous session after the special message is received, the President shall cease such impoundment under this bill.
This procedure will certainly permit the appropriate Executive actions to reserve funds where economies and savings can be achieved and uncertainties avoided or deficiencies prevented. At the same time, the constitutional obligation for Congress to set legislative policy and be accountable to the citizens of this country for properly fulfilling that obligation will be restored.
This latter obligation was also succinctly stated by an early and distinguished Carolinian in Congress. In a speech before the House of Representatives on January 17, 1817, Congressman John C. Calhoun of South Carolina stated:
"But what mainly distinguishes the Legislative and Executive branches, as it regards their actual responsibility to the people, is the nature of their operation. It is the duty of the former to enact laws, of the latter to execute them. Every citizen of ordinary information is capable, in a greater or less degree, to form an opinion of the propriety of the law, and consequently whether Congress has or has not done its duty; but of the execution of the laws, they are far less competent to judge.
How can the community judge whether the President, in appointing officers to execute the laws, has in all cases been governed by fair and honest motives, or by favor or corruption? How much less competent is it to judge whether the application of the public money has been made with economy and fidelity or with waste and corruption! These are facts that can be fully investigated and brought before the public by Congress, and Congress only. Hence it is that the Constitution has made the President responsible to Congress. This, then, is the essence of our liberty; Congress is responsible to the people immediately, and the other branches of Government are responsible to it ..."
Mr. ERVIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that an editorial from the New York Times dated October 27, 1972, and entitled "Power of the Purse" be printed at this point in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the editorial was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
POWER OF THE PURSE
Despite the refusal of Congress to grant the President power to make whatever cuts he wanted in spending programs to hold the Federal budget under a $250-billion ceiling, Mr. Nixon's aides say that he still intends to impound funds on his own to reach the same objective.
Congress has never conceded that Presidents have the power to ignore laws it has enacted or to reverse the priorities it has set. The Constitution gives Congress the responsibility of raising funds and determining how they shall be spent, and it charges the President with faithfully executing the laws. The President's veto powers are spelled out, and limited. When Presidents have withheld authorized expenditures, because economies could be effected or, because the outlays were no longer required (as when a war ended), usually Congress has insisted on giving its specific approval and legislative sanction to such Presidential actions.
However, It is certainly true that Presidents and Congresses have sometimes done battle over particular Administration refusals to spend funds. That issue has not been clearly resolved because successive Administrations kept it out of the courts until 1970. In several cases, the right of Presidents to impound funds has now been challenged: In the first important test – the Missouri State Highway Commission v. Volpe – a Federal judge in Missouri ruled this year that it was illegal for the Nixon Administration to impound highway funds. The Government has appealed this verdict.
Looking beyond the immediate controversy, we believe that it would be desirable for the President to have carefully limited authority to impound funds either to effect economies in specific programs or to achieve overall fiscal objectives. Senator Ervin of North Carolina in the last session of Congress introduced a bill that could achieve this objective on the expenditure side in a way that would not encroach upon the constitutional powers of Congress, by giving the President authority to impound funds for a limited period pending Congressional review.
Both the need for greater economy in Government and better fiscal planning require a greater degree of budgetary flexibility; but it is equally important that the constitutional responsibilities and authority of Congress not be undermined by undue assertions of Presidential power.
Mr. ERVIN. Mr. President, I might state that in my judgment both the Judiciary Committee and the Government Operations Committee have jurisdiction of this proposed legislation. The Subcommittee on Separation of Powers of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary conducted extensive hearings on this matter during the last session.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be referred in the first instance to the Judiciary Committee, with the understanding that when the Judiciary Committee completes its action on the bill, the bill then be referred to the Committee on Government Operations. I might state that the purpose of this unanimous-consent request is to enable the two committees to jointly hold hearings on the bill.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. HUMPHREY. Mr. President, I want to commend the distinguished Senator from North Carolina for his admirable and effective leadership on this whole issue of the impoundment of funds by the President and the executive branch.
No Member of this body is a more capable lawyer, a more capable student of the law, or more dedicated to the constitutional processes than is the distinguished Senator from North Carolina.
I am so grateful that he has taken the leadership here on this matter because we trust him and I think the country trusts him. He is a man of moderation and judicious temperament. I am so pleased that he is taking this bill before the two committees to get the matter completely aired and hear all of the testimony and take appropriate legislative action.
Mr. ERVIN. Mr. President, if the Senator would yield, I wish to thank him for the high compliment he has paid me. I point out that the distinguished Senator from Minnesota has been very much interested in this subject and has added amendments, which were agreed to by the Senate, to bills on this subject matter. Some of the ideas he has expressed in his amendments are incorporated in the bill.
Mr. HUMPHREY. Mr. President, I thank the Senator very much.
IMPOUNDMENT OF FUNDS
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, it is with pleasure that I join my distinguished colleague, the senior Senator from North Carolina, in sponsoring legislation to reconfirm the power of Congress to supervise the financial policies of government.
The arrogance with which the administration has ignored and twisted specific congressional directives on funding Federal programs has made firm action on our part a necessity. Ours is not a political vendetta but an urgent effort to safeguard the constitutional checks and balances that are now so grossly violated.
The appropriations process has been brought into disrepute by executive actions that openly defy the will of the Congress and the intent of our fundamental laws. Those laws require that an administration set forth its priorities and present specific requests for the financial means with which to carry them out. The Congress then has the duty both to consider and revise those budget priorities and to determine the funds required. Once Congress has made those decisions, it is, of course, proper for the President to dissent – by vetoing our acts and submitting his veto to the Congress for reconsideration.
But it is not just improper – it is devious in the extreme and brutally damaging to the constitutional scheme of government – to accede to a congressional order and then secretively undermine its implementation by impounding public funds the Congress has directed be spent. If the President chooses to dispute our directives – and he has every right to do so – the dispute must be in the open. Hole-and-corner tactics do grave injury to the political process and sap the strength of democracy.
The bill I am proud to support as a cosponsor will, first of all, put an end to dissembling. It will require the President to explain his actions to Congress and seek approval for them. It does not prohibit a President from exercising fiscal responsibility or taking emergency economic measures a particular situation may require. But it compels the Executive to inform the Congress and the people of all such actions and to acknowledge the shared responsibility of both branches of Government for the sound administration of our resources.
The exercise of greater candor and consultation by the administration in its relations with Congress would have precluded this legislation. But the reverse policy – one of deception and defiance – necessitates our unmistakable response. I urge speedy consideration and enactment of this important bill to restore to the representatives of the American people the authority that is now being drained from them.