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Across the twentieth century, presidents claimed a power to refuse to spend congressional appropriated funds. The constitutional battle over a presidential impoundment power reached its peak during the Nixon presidency, but the issue remain unresolved. The Trump administration has shown a renewed interest in claiming a constitutional prerogative to impound funds, which will potentially force a new constitutional settlement. Despite the White House’s current interest in such a power, the Constitution cannot properly be understood to empower the president to refuse to spend mandated funds.
Keith E. Whittington is the David Boies Professor at Yale Law School and a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution. He is the faculty director of the Center for the Study of Free Speech and Academic Freedom at Yale Law School. He works on American constitutional history, politics, and law, and on American political thought. He is the author of Constitutional Construction: Divided Powers and Constitutional Meaning and The Impeachment Power: The Law, Politics, and Purpose of an Extraordinary Constitutional Tool, among other works. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and served on the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States. He did his undergraduate work at the University of Texas at Austin and completed his Ph.D. In political science at Yale University.