Member-only story
Mr. Trump, America’s Government Teacher
Try to appreciate how much you’re learning!
If you had asked me six weeks ago what impoundment is, I would have said something about cars that got too many parking tickets.
Now, of course, I know it’s also a term that refers to a president’s refusal to spend funds in the way Congress dictates. I know all about the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, which stemmed from Richard Nixon’s attempts to weasel out of funding EPA programs with which he disagreed. I know that Congress, in the wake of Nixon’s abuses of presidential authority, passed the law to make sure that future chief executives didn’t try to usurp Congress’ power of the purse.
All this stuff about funding and impoundment was deeply obscure, understood only by government employees and constitutional lawyers up until now. I have a graduate degree in American history and I literally taught high school American Government one time, but I can’t recall ever hearing about impoundment. Now, thanks to Donald Trump, I have!
The United States government is one of the most complex organizations in the history of the world. It employs over 2 million people and affects every American’s life in dozens of ways, from the air we breathe to the military that protects us. It operates on a few core principles that most people know…
