The Administration Unconstitutionally Tries to Usurp Congress' Power of Purse by Illegally Freezing Mandated Federal Spending

Jun 10, 2025

From the beginning, DOGE has been less about cutting spending than seizing the “power of the purse” away from Congress and giving control over federal spending to the executive—in defiance of Article I of the Constitution. The latest gambit is simply to freeze spending and dare Congress to do anything about it.

Politico reports:

The Office of Management and Budget late last week directed several agencies to freeze upward of $30 billion in spending on a broad array of programs, according to agency emails and two people familiar with the plan. …
The order to freeze some funding at more than a dozen agencies comes in advance of a budget spending “deferrals” package that the White House plans to send Congress. Spending deferrals allow the executive branch to temporarily prevent authorized dollars from going out the door—but only if lawmakers sign off on the move.
Freezing the spending before making that request seems to fly in the face of Congress’ constitutional power and the 1974 Impoundment Control Act, said Joseph Carlile, former associate director at OMB in the Biden administration. … “This is consistent with an administration that believes that they have broader powers around budget and spending than any other administration has ever been able to find,” Carlile added. …
Yet the White House has worked to keep the effort quiet, said one person in the administration with direct knowledge of the strategy. The person said the White House directive was communicated largely to agencies over the phone to avoid creating a paper trail.

The power of the purse is the basis of all congressional power. If Congress does not control spending, it’s not clear what it does control. This is why the administration has been trying to take over that power—and why congressional Republicans have been eager to give it away.

The Executive Watch is a project of the Institute for the Study of Modern Authoritarianism, and its flagship publication The UnPopulist, to track in an ongoing way the abuses of the power of the American presidency. It sorts these abuses into five categories: Personal Grift, Political Corruption, Presidential Retribution, Power Consolidation, and Policy Illegality. Click the category of interest to get an overview of all the abuses under it.

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