Done right, rescissions keep Congress in control of federal spending

For fifty years, Congress has given presidents three choices when it comes to implementing appropriations laws: They can spend the money, or they can send a special message to Congress either deferring the spending or proposing to cut the funding for good. Withholding funds outside of this framework is an unlawful impoundment.

If, for example, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) “saved” $190 billion (according to its own site as of July 9, 2025), or the administration withheld over $425 billion, as estimated by the minority staff of the congressional Appropriations Committees, that money is being impounded rather than spent.

Congress made impoundments of this sort illegal 50 years ago in the Impoundment Control Act (ICA) of 1974 — unless the president follows the Act’s procedures and sends a special message to Congress proposing either to defer the spending until later in the year or to rescind (that is, permanently cancel) the funds. 

What is a rescission?

When presidents want to propose cutting funds, they must send a special message to Congress providing detailed information about which funds they are proposing to cut. The proposed cuts are called “rescissions.” 

Congress has expedited procedures to consider rescissions, which go into effect only if Congress passes a law and the president signs it. Just as it takes passing a law for the government to spend money, it takes passing a law to take that money away. 

Withholding funds before asking Congress to make cuts violates the law

The ICA limits the president’s ability to delay or refuse to spend money appropriated by Congress. Because the law gives the president only three options — to spend the money or propose to defer or rescind it under the ICA — if a president withholds funds before sending a special message that is, generally, breaking the law. Requesting a rescission is the first step in the process, and if a president withholds money before asking Congress, that is an impoundment. 

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has even explained that outside the ICA’s framework, delays in spending are permissible only where “operational factors unavoidably impede the obligation of budget authority, notwithstanding the agency’s reasonable and good faith efforts to implement the program.”

What is a “pocket rescission?” 

A “pocket rescission” is an illegal impoundment — according to GAO and Supreme Court precedents.

When the president submits a rescission proposal to Congress, he generally may withhold the funds in question for 45 days of continuous session of Congress as lawmakers consider whether to act on his proposal. If Congress disapproves of the rescission or does not act during that period, the president must make the funds available for obligation.

A so-called “pocket rescission” occurs when the president submits a rescission proposal so close to the date of expiration of the funds in question that the president’s withholding of funds during the 45-day period causes the funds to expire either during that period or shortly after that period because there is not sufficient time left for the agency to obligate the funds before they expire. By definition, such a maneuver evades the law. It is illegal. It cannot codify any DOGE cut, and it is closer to an unconstitutional line-item veto than it is to a lawfully proposed rescission.

In 2018 and 2019, President Trump considered proposing rescissions in August in order to cancel billions of dollars in foreign aid by withholding the funds through their expiration date (in other words, by effecting a “pocket rescission”). Both times, however, he backed down in response to pressure from Republican members of Congress and his own cabinet.

The idea of pocket rescissions is contrary to the ICA, which says any funds proposed for rescission “shall be made available for obligation unless” Congress passes a law making the cuts. 

The GAO has rejected pocket rescissions as inconsistent with the “statutory text and legislative history of the ICA, Supreme Court case law, and the overarching constitutional framework of the legislative and executive powers.” And Georgetown Law Professor David Super has described pocket rescissions as a “legal fantasy.”