Eloise Pasachoff
92 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 359
Two foundational statutes limit the executive branch’s important and necessary work in executing the budget against the backdrop of congressional control: the Antideficiency Act, dating back to the post-Civil War era, and the Impoundment Control Act, which emerged from the Nixon years. This Article, originally written as an invited contribution to The George Washington Law Review’s annual issue on administrative law, calls these the Power of the Purse statutes. While these statutes have been generally successful in responding to the problems that first prompted them, this Article illustrates gaps in the statutes that have become apparent in an era of expanded presidential control and proposes reforms to fix them. The reforms largely—although not entirely—map onto legislation proposed by Democrats in recent years. This Article argues that these proposals are commonsense reforms that ought to be supported by bipartisan majorities—as underscored by, among other things, their support from a remarkably bipartisan coalition of civil society organizations during both the Trump and Biden Administrations and the enactment of several of the reforms with bipartisan support through consecutive Consolidated Appropriations Acts. This Article thus reframes both the problems and the proposals as institutional rather than partisan and urges that the reforms ought to become law.
