A federal appeals court has handed the Trump administration a major victory, ruling that the President can withhold nearly $2 billion in foreign aid funds that were lawfully appropriated by Congress. This is not a simple ruling on a funding dispute. It is a decision that effectively guts a 50-year-old law designed to protect Congress’s most fundamental constitutional power: the power of the purse.
The court’s technical-sounding ruling has created a dangerous constitutional loophole. It affirms the existence of a law meant to stop a president from unilaterally defunding programs he dislikes, while simultaneously ruling that almost no one has the right to enforce it. This is a profound and perilous moment for the separation of powers.
A Law Born From a Constitutional Crisis
To understand the stakes, we must first understand the history of the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 (ICA). This law was not a minor procedural tweak; it was a direct response to a full-blown constitutional crisis. President Richard Nixon, frustrated with a Congress controlled by the opposing party, began to simply refuse to spend money on programs he disliked, a practice known as impoundment.
Congress, seeing its core constitutional authority being nullified by the executive, passed the ICA to explicitly forbid a president from unilaterally refusing to spend money that had been legally appropriated. It was a powerful reassertion of Article I authority. For half a century, this law has served as a critical check on presidential overreach.
The Court’s Procedural Catch-22
The Trump administration, through an executive order on its first day, sought to freeze nearly all foreign aid spending, including the nearly $2 billion in USAID funds at the center of this case. A lower court blocked this action, citing the ICA.
Now, a 2-1 majority on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has reversed that. The court’s reasoning creates a devastating procedural Catch-22. Judge Karen Henderson, writing for the majority, ruled that the aid organizations who are being defunded have no “cause of action” – or legal right – to sue the administration under the very law that is supposed to protect their funding. According to the court, the only entity that could sue to enforce the Impoundment Control Act is the U.S. Comptroller General.
This ruling transforms a law meant to be a shield for congressional power into a law that is practically unenforceable by those it is designed to protect. It creates a right without a remedy, a lock without a key.
The Erosion of the Power of the Purse
This decision is a massive victory for an expansive view of executive power. If a president can sign a congressional spending bill into law and then simply refuse to spend the money on the parts he opposes, and the courts rule that no one directly harmed can sue to stop him, then the separation of powers has been weakened.
Congress’s “power of the purse” is no longer a command; it becomes merely a suggestion that the President is free to ignore.
This precedent could allow any future president, of any party, to unilaterally defund any program they choose, from environmental protection to defense spending, effectively giving the White House a line-item veto that the Constitution does not grant.
While this legal fight may continue, this 2-1 decision is a landmark moment. The Impoundment Control Act was Congress’s last great stand to defend its most fundamental power. This ruling has effectively dismantled that fortress, not by striking down the law itself, but by locking the gates and refusing to let anyone in to enforce it. This procedural victory for the White House may one day be seen as a constitutional defeat for the American republic.