PROVISION IN DEBT BILL

Congress did so, according to that view, when it passed a bill last October to raise the national debt limit to $465-billion. The bill contained a provision requiring the President to promptly provide Congress with full information on impounded funds. Congress thus seemed to concede that funds could be impounded, although the legislative branch had to be notified.

That bill contained no procedure for Congress to override the President in impoundments. However, 51 Senators have now signed a bill to require Congressional consent.

Incidentally, some people at the White House use the term "saving out" rather than "impoundment." They say impoundment is incorrect because it implies that the withheld money will be released and spent later. That, they assert, is not the President's intention.

The confidence of the Administration that it can defeat Congress on the spending issue is reinforced by a feeling of disdain for Congress as an institution and for its present leadership.

President Nixon said on Wednesday that "this Congress has not been responsible on money." He added that "there is only one place in this Government where somebody has got to speak, not for the special interests which the Congress represents, but for the general interest."

Of course that one place is, in the President's view, the White House.

In the White House they have no confidence that Congress can do what the President feels is necessary-that is, set an over-all spending limit and stay within it. All it takes is will power, a member of the Cabinet remarked the other day, but Congress does not have it.

Congress is like a family in which every member "plans his own spending individually" President Nixon remarked in his Budget Message last Monday. Contrasted with the inertness of Congress is what one White House official calls the "dynamism" of the Presidency. Presidential actions are very hard to stop. whatever the issue or whoever the President.

"WILL OF THE PEOPLE"

There is no lack of illustrations of this dynamism. One needs to recall only the launching of the New Deal by Franklin D. Roosevelt or the escalation of the Vietnam war by Lyndon B. Johnson.

President Nixon is relying, however, not only on his own dynamism in the dispute with Congress but also on what he calls "the expressed will of the people." The President promised in the 1972 election campaign that he would not propose any tax increases if reelected, and he regards that promise as a part of the mandate he received. When his Budget Message was ready he presented it first to the people in a radio talk and not to the Congress as is customary.

"It is time to get big Government off your back and out of your pocket" the President told the taxpayers, and he called on them to support those Representatives and Senators "who have the courage to vote against higher spending."

Representatives and Senators were reminded in turn that they also had a mandate not to increase taxes. President Nixon told his news conference on Wednesday that he had checked on all those who had run for office in November and had not found one member of Congress "who had campaigned on the platform of raising taxes in order that we could spend more.'

[From the Denver Post, Jan. 31, 1973]

NADER: PUT TOUGH REIN ON NIXON

WASHINGTON.-Ralph Nader, the consumer activist, urged Congress Tuesday to reassert its constitutional powers and thus prevent President Nixon from developing "a do-it-yourself Congress right inside the White House complex."

But Nader took sharp issue, in testimony before the Senate subcommittee on separation of powers, with a bill designed to force the President to spend money as Congress directs.

"In my opinion, the bill falls far short of what is necessary," Nader said of the measure sponsored by Sen. Sam J. Ervin Jr., D-N.C., and supported by a majority of the Senate.

NOTIFICATION REQUIRED

The measure would require the President to notify Congress when he impounds, or refuses to release, appropriated funds and to spend the money unless Congress consents within 60 days to the withholding of it.

According to Nader, the proposal implies that the President has a right to impound funds a right which neither Nader nor the sponsors are prepared to concede and leaves open the possibility that the administration could hold up funds indefinitely by merely repeating the 60-day cycle.

Nixon has refused to release several billions of dollars for highway construction, sewage treatment, soil conservation, rural electrification and other programs enacted by Congress, prompting professions of outrage on Capitol Hill.

DISPUTE INTENSIFIED

The spending dispute was intensified by the President's proposal, in the budget for the 1974 fiscal year which he sent to Congress Monday, to eliminate or sharply reduce many of the same programs.

The budget conflict took a new turn Tuesday, when it was learned that Caspar W. Weinberger, Nixon's nominee to be secretary of health, education and welfare, had told department officials that he couldn't approve their testimony before congressional committees until his nomination is confirmed by the Senate. As a result, the officials have canceled scheduled appearances before committees.

Weinberger had been director of the Office of Management and Budget at the White House and, as such, the official who supervised the impoundment of the disputed appropriations and drafted the controversial new budget proposal.

CONFIRMATION STALLED

His confirmation to the Cabinet post is being blocked by members of the Senate Labor and Public Welfare Committee until they receive a full accounting of the amounts being withheld and the reasons for the actions.

Weinberger said the department officials couldn't testify because of "the problem of how do you form policy and how do you clear things when there's no one with official standing as secretary to approve the policy.

Consequently, Weinberger and two education officials have declined invitations to testify next week before a House education and labor subcommittee. Dr. John Sapp, a health policy planner in the department, canceled a scheduled appearance Wednesday before a Senate labor and public welfare subcommittee.

The Senate Democratic Policy Committee adopted a resolution Tuesday to express its determination to "recapture" the "rightful constitutional place" of Congress in the fiscal process. The resolution complained that Nixon had "seized" congressional authority "by means of impoundment, unilateral budget cuts and fiscal manipulations outside the knowledge or control of Congress."

[From the Rocky Mountain News, Denver, Colo., Feb. 1, 1973]

SPENDING BATTLE BETWEEN NIXON, CONGRESS HEATS UP

(By Robert Dietsch)

WASHINGTON.-The "battle of the purse" between President Nixon and the Democratic Congress gained intensity Wednesday with the President saying, "I will not spend money if the Congress overspends" and Congress contending Nixon's actions have caused a new constitutional crisis.

The key issues in the battle are:

Who has the right to determine how much federal money should be spent on various programs?

Who has the right to terminate a program after it is voted by Congress? The legislators claimed that by refusing to spend the money Congress voted, and by imposing his own priorities on the legislative branch, Nixon has brought on a constitutional crisis.

Nixon, charging that Congress, "has not been responsible on money," said "the constitutional right for the President . . . not to spend money absolutely clear."

. . is

The President told his press conference Wednesday: "I will not spend money if the Congress overspends, and I will not be for programs that will raise the taxes and put a bigger burden on the already overburdened American taxpayer.”

LIST BEING PREPARED

Even while this battle went on, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) was preparing a list of funds voted by Congress and impounded (not spent) by the executive branch. That list, by a law passed last year, must go to Congress by Feb. 10.

OMB officials Wednesday insisted they still did not know how much money is involved. But a House appropriations subcommittee headed by Rep. Joe L. Evins, D-Tenn., has pegged the total of these impounded funds at $12 billion for fiscal 1973, which ends June 30.

According to Evins, $6 billion of the impounded funds come from the 1972 Water Pollution Control Act, passed over a Nixon veto. Congress gave the Environmental Protection Agency $11 billion to spend, but the President ordered the agency to spend only $5 billion.

Evins also listed these impounded funds:

$1.26 billion in farm programs, including the Rural Electrification Administration and Rural Housing Insurance Fund.

$523 million in housing and urban development.

$243 million for Commerce Department programs, including water, sewer and industrial expansion grants.

$112 million in Veterans Administration funds, including $60 million for hospital construction.

The battle of the purse has been waged before, but never with today's intensity. One reason is political.

Nixon is a Republican and wants to withhold funds from programs approved by Congresses dominated by Democrats. But the intensity of the battle also is linked to the number of domestic programs Nixon is curtailing. Those programs encompass the fields of agriculture, education, welfare, aid to depressed areas, school milk programs and transportation.

CONTROLLABLE FUNDS

Nixon officials say that only $40 billion of the President's proposed $250 billion fiscal 1973 budget represents “controllable" funds-those over which the executive branch has control. Thus, if the fiscal 1973 impoundment does total $12 billion, Nixon is balking at spending 30 per cent of the controllable budget. It is true, as the White House frequently reminds, that previous presidents refused to spend money Congress voted. But in general, those refusals were limited and centered on defense and transportation programs. Those refusals centered not so much on presidential decisions to eliminate programs as on delaying expenditures.

In addition to slowing down spending for certain domestic programs, Nixon has made clear he intends to eliminate programs voted by Congress simply by not spending any money of them-ever.

Sen. Sam J. Ervin, Jr., D-N.C., Congress leader in the battle of the purse, generally defines impounded funds as any withholding by the executive branch of funds appropriated by Congress, except for the most routine actions.

[From the National Observer (New York), Feb. 17, 1973]

A TWIST ON THE PURSE STRING BATTLE

THIS TIME CONGRESS IS VOTING THE CASH, BUT THE PRESIDENT REFUSES
TO SPEND IT

(By Richard Egan)

President Nixon is seeking to "run the Government by fiat," complained oue congressman. Congress is attempting to "transform the Chief Executive into a chief clerk," asserted an Administration official.

Congress and the White House were feuding again last week. The immediate issue was impoundment: whether the President has authority to refuse to spend

funds appropriated by Congress. But in a broader sense Congress and the White House were embroiled in another of their oft-occurring Constiutional clashes over division of powers between the legislative and executive branches. This time the squabbling was over control of the nation's purse strings and the right to determine which programs the American taxpayer's dollar is spent on.

BUDGETARY RESERVES

A report last week by the White House's Office of Management and Budget (GMB) showed that the President is witholding $8,723,000,000 appropriated by Congress. OMB officials said some of these "budgetary reserves" likely would be spent later; the OMB report on impoundment was ordered by Congress last year. Few Government agencies, not even the White House, escaped the impounders' lock and key. And, though the President held back funds for some pet projets of congressmen and special-interest groups, he also set aside funds that many congressmen, despite their opposition to impoundment, might agree should not be spent.

Money was withheld from every Cabinet department except Labor. Funds were also withheld from 20 Government agencies, boards, and commissions, from the multibillion-dollar National Aeronautics and Space Administration ($32.5 million impounded) to the little-known Federal Metal and Nonmetallic Safety Board of Review ($85.000). The Transportation Department was hardest hit, with $2.9 billion withheld, including the biggest single appropriations item affected-$2.5 billion for highway construction.

FOOD STAMPS AFFECTED

In all, 228 appropriation items were withheld in full or in part by the President, affecting many special-interest groups. Samples: development of minority business ($18 million), food stamps ($158.9 million), higher education ($11.9 million), traffic and highway safety ($2.9 million), and urban mass transportation ($20 million).

Impoundment of funds for agricultural and housing programs particularly angered several congressmen. The House struck back last week by passing a bill ordering the Agriculture Department to spend $225 million on a rural-conservation program. President Nixon had scrapped the program last year by impounding its full $210 million appropriation.

In withholding some funds the President might gain the approval of congressmen critical of escalating Federal budgets. Nearly $90 million in Federal salaries and expenses was impounded. So was $2 billion in appropriations for the Defense Department, a perennial budget target of some congressmen. But most of the Pentagon funds are for shipbuilding and construction, and may be released later.

BELITTLING POSITION

The impoundment issue has been heating up since Congress convened in January. Congress went on the attack when Sen. Sam J. Ervin, Jr., North Carolina Democrat, introduced a bill requiring the President to notify Congress whenever he impounds funds and forcing him to spend those funds unless Congress endorses the impoundment within 60 days. Impoundment, complains Ervin, “places Congress in the paradoxical and belittling position of having to lobby the executive to carry out laws [Congress] has passed."

White House officials argue that impoundment is necessary for sound fiscal management of the nation's economy. They say that since Congress sets no ceiling on its appropriations, it approves funds with little regard to their over-all effect on the economy. If the President had failed to withhold appropriations surpassing his $250 billion spending ceiling, higher taxes would have been needed to ward off a new surge of inflation, the officials say.

The impoundment issue also cropped up last week at several hearings of congressional committees, with congressmen threatening to withhold funds for OMB, to cut the defense budget, or to delay confirmation of key Presidential appointees unless the impounded funds were released. Partly out of pique over the impoundment issue, the Senate voted to require confirmation of OMB's two top officials. Director Roy L. Ash and Deputy Director Frederic V. Malek, both of whom already have been sworn in. Nixon, in turn, threatened to wield a "very substantial number" of vetoes of legislation this year.

JEFFERSONIAN PRECEDENT

At hearings on Ervin's bill, Ash and Deputy Attorney General Joseph T. Sneed conceded that the President had no "explicit" Constitutional authority for impounding funds, but that the authority stemmed from precedent and legislation, and also implicitly from his Constitutional duties. They said many Presidents have impounded funds, starting with Thomas Jefffferson, who in 1803 kept back $50,000 appropriated for gunboats to protect navigation along the Mississippi from Indians: Jefferson said the funds were unneeded because a treaty was signed with the Indians after the money was appropriated.

Administration officials also cited the Antideficiency Act of 1905, which gave the President authority to create reserves to "provide for contingencies," and to "effect savings" made possible through changes in requirements, greater efficiency in operation, or other developments arising after appropriations were approved. For example, though Congress appropriated $20 million for a prototype desalting plant for Israel, the money cannot be spent because U.S.-Israeli negotiations on the plant are still under way.

But impoundments based on developments arising after Congress has appropriated funds, such as Jefferson's gunboats, are not what really bothers congressmen. Their objection is to the President's impoundment for reasons of economic stability, which they see as a pretext that enables the President to sift through congressionally approved programs and decide those he wants and those he doesn't. Of the $8.7 billion impounded, $6.2 billion was withheld at least in part for reasons of economic stability. According to the OMB report, the $2.5 billion in highway funds and some other items were set aside because of the "President's responsibility to help maintain economic stability without undue price and cost increases."

At the hearing on the Ervin bill, Sneed said the President derives impoundment authority from the Constitution's provision that the President "take care that the laws are faithfully executed." He argued that this provision requires the President to uphold all laws, and that when conflicts between laws arise the President may impound funds to resolve them.

THE OMB IMPOUNDMENT REPORT

Sneed held that if all congressional appropriations had been spent the congressionally established ceiling on the national debt would have been punctured, and Nixon through executing the laws would have violated the debt-limit statute. The OMB impoundment report cited two other Constitutional grounds for impoundment: the President's authority as Commander in Chief and his responsibility for the conduct of foreign affairs. No funds were impounded on these grounds, however.

Ervin and other congressmen insist that the Constitution allows the President to veto only an entire bill, not just a section of it. He argues that by deciding which appropriations will be withheld, the President in effect is making legislative policy, a Constitutional prerogative of Congress alone. Impoundment, says Ervin, is "merely a means whereby the White House can give effect to the social goals of its own choosing by reallocating national resources in contravention of congressional dictates."

[From the Evening Star and Daily News, Washington, D.C., Jan. 30, 1973]

MR. CONSTITUTION: IT'S ALL UP TO HIM

(By Shirley Elder)

Samuel James Ervin, Jr., lawyer, judge, defender of the Constitution, took office as the junior senator from North Carolina on June 6, 1954.

Almost immediately he was in the middle of things-such issues as school desegregation and Sen. Joseph McCarthy's hunt for Communists.

Today Ervin again is in the middle of controversy, all coming at once. Acting as chairman of the Government Operations Committee, or one of two Judiciary subcommittees, or as chairman of a new special investigating unit, Ervin will lead some of the most important legislative battles of the new Congress.

His committees will be the focus of Congress' action on impoundment of appropriated funds, the protection of newsmen's sources and the investigation of the political implications of the Watergate incident.