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impoundment
Facing Growing Outrage and Legal Action, Trump Admin Frees Chunk of Withheld Education Funds
"He's still illegally withholding $5.5 billion more from schools," said Sen. Bernie Sanders. "Congress passed it. The president signed it. Trump must release it."
Jul 18, 2025
Following widespread backlash and threats of legal action, the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump announced Friday that it will free up part of the $6.8 billion worth of education funding the president has withheld from states.
Earlier this week, 24 states sued the administration after it announced it would refuse to send the money—which had already been appropriated by Congress—to states just weeks before the start of the school year, citing "ongoing programmatic review" to ensure that none of it is used to fund diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.
According to The New York Times:
The withheld money includes about 14% of all federal funding for elementary and secondary education across the country. It helps pay for free or low-cost after-school programs that give students a place to go while their parents work. It also covers training to improve the effectiveness of teachers and help for children learning English.
These programs provide a critical source of childcare that allow low-income families to work. Without them, organizations like the YMCA and the Boys and Girls Club of America have said they'd need to scale back their offerings.
A report issued last week by New America noted the disproportionate impact the cuts would have on low-income students:
Students from low-income backgrounds are especially at risk of losing education resources. Districts serving high-poverty student populations (those where over 25% of children live in poverty) will lose over five times as much funding per pupil as low-poverty school districts (those where fewer than 10% of children live in poverty). The 100 school districts facing the biggest cuts on a per-pupil basis have an average child poverty rate of 24.4%, much higher than the national average of 15.3%.
The administration held up the funding for weeks, causing a building panic among educators and families. A group of 10 Republican senators even sent a letter on Wednesday urging a top Trump official to let the money flow to their states.
Then, on Friday, the administration announced that it would allow $1.4 billion worth of funding to be released to states beginning Monday, though they would still reserve the right to choke it off once again should any of it be used to violate the president's executive orders.
The administration said it will continue to withhold the remaining $5.5 billion and provided no timeline for when it might be released.
According to Education Week, schools around the country had been "banking" on that money for teacher training, English-learner services, migrant and adult education programs, and academic enrichment being delivered on its expected due date of July 1.
David Schuler, executive director of AASA, an association of school superintendents, said that while he was happy to see some of the money released, withholding the rest was still putting severe strain on schools.
"Districts should not be in this impossible position where the administration is denying funds that had already been appropriated to our public schools, by Congress," Schuler said in a statement. "The remaining funds must be released immediately—America's children are counting on it."
Senate Appropriations Committee Vice Chair Patty Murray (D-Wash.) announced Friday that she would block the fast-tracking of a Trump appointee for the Department of Education until Trump releases all the funds.
"Just weeks out from the new school year, families, teachers, and school districts are suffering the consequences of President Trump's needless and illegal blockade of this funding," Murray said. "This administration won't so much as explain why the money is held up or when we can expect it to go out."
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who joined Murray's efforts, welcomed the news that some of the funding had been unfrozen.
"Today we forced Trump to release $1.3 billion for more than 10,000 summer and after-school programs helping 1.4 million students," he said.
But, Sanders added, "it's not enough. He's still illegally withholding $5.5 billion more from schools. Congress passed it. The president signed it. Trump must release it."
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Progressives, Democrats Vow Fight as Senate GOP Aims to Claw Back Billions in Federal Funding
Republicans plan to utilize a rare process called "rescission" to skirt Congress' power of the purse and illegally allow Trump to withhold hundreds of billions of dollars in federal funding to critical programs.
Jul 10, 2025
The U.S. Senate will soon vote on whether President Donald Trump can claw back billions of dollars that have already been appropriated by Congress.
Last month, the House narrowly voted to allow Trump to rescind $9.4 billion in funds that were meant to fund global health initiatives—including AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis prevention—and public broadcasters like PBS and NPR.
It's far from the first time that this Republican-controlled Congress has voted on massive budget cuts, but progressive groups and some Democratic lawmakers say this vote has another frightening dimension to it.
These funds were among the more than $420 billion appropriated by Congress that Trump illegally impounded, or refused to spend, at the start of his term.
In a letter sent Wednesday to members of Congress, a coalition of more than 100 groups—including Public Citizen, the AFL-CIO, and Greenpeace—warned that by voting to approve these rescissions of federal funds, they would be giving Trump tacit approval to unconstitutionally take away Congress' authority to spend money.
"This rescissions proposal does not ask Congress, as required by the Impoundment Control Act, to approve the entirety of the federal spending that has been illegally frozen by the Trump administration," the letter notes. "The administration is merely trying to establish a veil of legitimacy while it continues unconstitutional actions that it began more than 100 days ago."
The groups went on to warn that allowing the president to unilaterally cut funding that he doesn't approve of "risks irreparable damage to the regular bipartisan appropriations process."
"Despite the political back-and-forth, Congress eventually reaches a bipartisan agreement on government funding every year, one way or another," they said. "The basis for that bipartisan agreement is that both parties must agree to compromises to achieve any of their goals. If a party with a political trifecta can simply rescind funding for the parts of appropriations bills they compromised on, they undermine congressional checks and balances and the basis for future bipartisan dealmaking on an already politically fraught process."
Under the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, presidents are forbidden from unilaterally refusing to spend funds. However, Congress is allowed to pass a "rescission" bill within 45 days of canceling them if the president requests it.
Trump would be the first president since Bill Clinton in 1999 to successfully have funds rescinded by Congress, and it would be the largest rescission in four decades.
But as the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities points out, there is a key difference: "The administration illegally impounded the funds at issue for months before proposing the [rescission] package" and that it is "unlawfully withholding much larger amounts of funding that it has not proposed for rescission."
According to a tracker created by the office of Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), who sit on the House and Senate appropriations committees, respectively, the Trump administration is blocking congressionally appropriated funds for programs including:
- Research into Alzheimer's disease, women's health, cancer, diabetes, and other illnesses;
- Natural disaster relief;
- School lunch assistance for children;
- Early childhood education through the Head Start Program; and
- Birth control and cancer screenings for over 800,000 patients
Russell Vought, the head of the White House's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has openly indicated a desire to use rescission to cut all of this spending "without having to get an affirmative vote" from Congress.
According to The New York Times, Vought is planning to use an even more arcane and illegal maneuver known as "pocket rescission" to avoid spending the funds. As Tony Romm reported in June:
Under the emerging plan, the Trump administration would wait until closer to Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year, to formally ask lawmakers to claw back a set of funds it has targeted for cuts. Even if Congress fails to vote on the request, the president’s timing would trigger a law that freezes the money until it ultimately expires.
Some Senate Democrats have indicated they'd be willing to risk a government shutdown to prevent the rescission bill from passing.
In a letter published Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) wrote that the prospect of the rescissions bill passing had "grave implications."
"[I]t is absurd for [Republicans] to expect Democrats to act as business as usual and engage in a bipartisan appropriations process to fund the government, while they concurrently plot to pass a purely partisan rescissions bill to defund those same programs negotiated on a bipartisan basis behind the scenes," Schumer wrote.
Murray called out Vought directly on Wednesday at a markup session on the next round of bills in the Senate Appropriations Committee.
"For us to be able to work in a bipartisan way effectively, that requires us to work with each other. To not just write bipartisan funding bills—but to defend them from partisan cuts sought by the president and the OMB director," she said during her opening remarks. "We cannot allow bipartisan funding bills with partisan rescission packages. It will not work."
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Top Democrat Issues Warning Over Trump Plot to 'Steal' From Federal Programs
"The Constitution provides no impoundment power to the president to unilaterally withhold funds appropriated by Congress," said Rep. Rosa DeLauro.
Dec 07, 2024
The top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee warned Friday that President-elect Donald Trump is planning to "steal from the programs and services that affect middle-class, working, and vulnerable families" by refusing to spend money appropriated by Congress.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) said in a statement that Trump's strategy, known as "impoundment," is "uninformed and unconstitutional," adding that "the Supreme Court, the Department of Justice, and the Government Accountability Office are all in agreement—the Constitution provides no impoundment power to the president to unilaterally withhold funds appropriated by Congress."
"It is the sworn duty of the president of the United States to faithfully execute the law," DeLauro added, "and appropriations laws are no exception."
In a new fact sheet, Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee note that "the Constitution gives Congress the power of the purse, and nowhere does it give the president any unilateral power to either temporarily or permanently impound—steal, withhold, or prevent from being spent—funds appropriated by Congress."
"The Framers were right to give Congress the power of the purse," the fact sheet states. "If the president had the unilateral power to decline to spend resources as directed by Congress, then those who rely on Social Security, Medicare, Veterans Medical Care, and other federal spending programs would be subject to the whims of the executive branch. The American people would be unable to depend on promises made by Congress in appropriations laws."
Trump has explicitly vowed to use impoundment to "squeeze the bloated federal bureaucracy for massive savings," a plan endorsed by the billionaire pair tapped by the president-elect to run a new commission tasked with identifying spending and regulations to slash.
"With impoundment, we can simply choke off the money," Trump declared in a campaign ad.
"They have no authority. Does anybody get that?"
Following Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy's visit to Capitol Hill on Thursday to discuss their plans for the "Department of Government Efficiency" (DOGE) with GOP lawmakers, The Washington Post reported that Republicans are "keen on expanding the president's power to impound spending—or refuse to spend money Congress authorizes."
"Musk and Ramaswamy said they were eager to test the constitutional limits of Trump's ability to unilaterally control spending decisions," the Post reported, citing two unnamed lawmakers. "Republicans largely left the more than two-hour meeting giddy."
Analysts argue Trump's plan to withhold federal spending would run afoul of the 1974 Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act (ICA). The law, as Propublica's Molly Redden explained, "forbids presidents from blocking spending over policy disagreements."
"A similar power grab led to his first impeachment," Redden wrote. "During his first term, Trump held up nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine while he pressured President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to open a corruption investigation into Joe Biden and his family. The U.S. Government Accountability Office later ruled his actions violated the Impoundment Control Act."
Democrats on the House Budget Committee recently pointed out that "although decided after the ICA passed, the Supreme Court unanimously held in Train v. City of New York that even without the ICA, the president does not have unilateral authority to impound funds."
That hasn't stopped Trump, Musk, and Ramaswamy from exploring ways to cut or block spending without congressional approval.
In a Wall Street Journal op-ed published last month, Musk and Ramaswamy wrote that "even without relying on" the view that the ICA is unconstitutional, "DOGE will help end federal overspending by taking aim at the $500 billion-plus in annual federal expenditures that are unauthorized by Congress or being used in ways that Congress never intended, from $535 million a year to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and $1.5 billion for grants to international organizations to nearly $300 million to progressive groups like Planned Parenthood."
Housing assistance, childcare aid, student loan programs, and other spending would also be vulnerable under such an approach.
"They want [to cut] $2 trillion," DeLauro told reporters Thursday. "Think about the discretionary budget. It's $1.7 trillion. Where are they going for the money? Where are they going?"
"They have no authority," she added. "Does anybody get that?"
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