Lately, Washington has been buzzing about “pocket rescissions,” and before that “rescissions.” The Trump administration, following Russell Vought’s lead at OMB, has used this maneuver to cancel billions in spending by sending rescission requests at the very end of the fiscal year. Critics say this is an end-run around Congress’s power of the purse. Defenders say the Impoundment Control Act (ICA) allows it.
The debate has mostly turned on lawyering. Is a pocket rescission an illegal impoundment, as GAO insists? Or is it a loophole Congress left open, as my colleague James Wallner and others argue?
This misses the point for several reasons.
First, the question of legality moves the venue of contestation out of Congress. Legality is something courts decide. By engaging in a debate about legality, Congress is actually ceding the question entirely. The framing as a legal issue perpetuates a kind of learned helplessness in Congress.
