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How Trump plans to seize the power of the purse from Congress
LA County board begins efforts to implement Measure G reforms
By Molly Redden, ProPublica This story was originally published by ProPublica. ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.
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By Anusha Shankar, City News Service
The Board of Supervisors discusses implementation of Measure G-mandated changes to LA County’s government. | Photo courtesy of Los Angeles County
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onald Trump is entering his second term with vows to cut a vast array of government services and a radical plan to do so. Rather than relying on his party’s control of Congress to trim the budget, Trump and his advisers intend to test an obscure legal theory holding that presidents have sweeping power to withhold funding from programs they dislike. “We can simply choke off the money,” Trump said in a 2023 campaign video. “For 200 years under our system of government, it was undisputed that the president had the constitutional power to stop unnecessary spending.” His plan, known as “impoundment,” threatens to provoke a major clash over the limits of the president’s control over the budget. The Constitution gives Congress the sole authority to appropriate the federal budget, while the role of the execu-
tive branch is to dole out the money effectively. But Trump and his advisers are asserting that a president can unilaterally ignore Congress’ spending decisions and “impound” funds if he opposes them or deems them wasteful. Trump’s designs on the budget are part of his administration’s larger plan to consolidate as much power in the executive branch as possible. Last month, he pressured the Senate to go into recess so he could appoint his cabinet without any oversight. (So far, Republicans who control the chamber have not agreed to do so.) His key advisers have spelled out plans to bring independent agencies, such as the Department of Justice, under political control. If Trump were to assert a power to kill congressionally approved programs, it would almost certainly tee up a fight in the federal courts
and Congress and, experts say, could fundamentally alter Congress’ bedrock power. “It’s an effort to wrest the entire power of the purse away from Congress, and that is just not the constitutional design,” said Eloise Pasachoff, a Georgetown Law professor who has written about the federal budget and appropriations process. “The president doesn’t have the authority to go into the budget bit by bit and pull out the stuff he doesn’t like.” Trump’s claim to have impoundment power contravenes a Nixon-era law that forbids presidents from blocking spending over policy disagreements as well as a string of federal court rulings that prevent presidents from refusing to spend money unless Congress grants them the flexibility. In an op-ed published Nov. 20, tech billionaire Elon Musk and former Republi-
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can presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who are overseeing the newly created, nongovernmental Department of Government Efficiency, wrote that they planned to slash federal spending and fire civil servants. Some of their efforts could offer Trump his first Supreme Court test of the post-Watergate Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974, which requires the president to spend the money Congress approves. The law allows exceptions, such as when the executive branch can achieve Congress’ goals by spending less, but not as a means for the president to kill programs he opposes. Trump and his aides have been telegraphing his plans for a hostile takeover of the budgeting process for months. Trump has decried
ollowing voters’ approval of an overhaul to county governance, the Board of Supervisors is beginning Wednesday to implement the changes, including a compromise that combined two competing proposals over the makeup of a task force that’ll oversee the process. Among the provisions of Measure G is an expansion of the Board of Supervisors from five to nine members following the 2030 census, and making the county CEO an elected position by 2028. The measure also includes the creation of the positions of county legislative analyst and director of budget and management. Measure G also formalizes the establishment of an Ethics Commission and a compliance officer by 2026. The Board of Supervisors has already begun the process of creating an Ethics Commission, but its existence will now be codified in the charter, along with
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President-elect Donald Trump speaking with attendees at an Arizona for Trump rally at Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale, Arizona. | Photo by Gage Skidmore CC BY-SA 2.0
the establishment of the compliance officer post, protecting it from being disbanded in future absent another public vote. The measure also had a series of other provisions, including the creation of a commission that would review the county charter every 10 years; requiring all county departments to present their annual budgets during public meetings; requiring all Board of Supervisors agenda items to be posted at least 120 hours prior to a regular meeting; authorizing suspension of an elected official charged with a felony relating to a violation of officials duties; and requiring that the changes be made with no additional cost to taxpayers. Board of Supervisors Chair Lindsey Horvath, who helped spearhead Measure G, introduced a motion aimed at beginning the process of implementing various changes included