Congress Cedes Power of the Purse to the President

Nathan Kessler | July 28, 2025

With much of the national attention understandably on the passage of President Trump’s economic agenda – the “One Big, Beautiful Bill” – a different bill to rescind approximately $9 billion in previously appropriated funding quietly worked its way through Congress.  

The rescissions request was submitted to Congress under the rarely used Impoundment Control Act on June 3 and received final approval on July 18.  

Under the rules of a request of this nature, Congress had 45 days to approve the request or let it dissolve, meaning the funds must be used as previously approved. The rules also allow the Senate to pass the request with a simple majority instead of the 60-vote threshold typically required for funding-related legislation.  

The approved request claws back $8 billion for foreign assistance programs and an additional $1.1 billion for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which is a major funding source for NPR and PBS. Originally, the request had also included a request to rescind $400 million for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), but the Senate removed that provision. Besides reducing U.S. soft power across the globe and jeopardizing local radio stations across the country, the decision to approve this request continues a pattern of Congress ceding its authority to the White House.  

This rescission request was so broad that the Senators who approved the package did not know which programs were going to be affected at the time of voting. This was a problem for the Appropriations Chair, Senator Susan Collins, who pressed for more details before voting against moving the bill out of her committee and later against passage of the bill. Senator Collins was far from the only one to take issue with this, including among other Republicans, because it essentially hands the power of the purse to the White House with the expectation that Congress willingly submits to all future requests.  

The impacts of this particular request, though small in comparison to the $4 trillion reconciliation bill signed into law on July 4, will be felt at home and around the world. Abroad, the United States’ influence will be reduced by $8 billion, with little clarity on exactly which programs are going to be affected.  

At home, we can expect dozens of local radio stations – many in rural areas – to shut down as critical funding dries up. NPR estimates that this loss of funding will cause up to 180 of its member stations to close and 30% of listeners to lose access to their programming, with states in the Midwest, South, and West to be most impacted.  

In the long term, this undermining of the appropriations process could have serious implications for the functioning of the U.S. government. If bipartisan agreements on how to allocate federal funds can be reversed by whichever party has the majority because the White House demanded it, then there is little incentive for the minority party to provide any votes to fund the government. This could make government shutdowns more likely in the future, creating more uncertainty in an already toxic political environment. 

 

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