PUBLIC WITNESSES Burt, Robert A., professor of law, University of Michigan___ Cooper, Poseph, professor of political science, Rice University Maass, Arthur, Frank B. Thompson professor of government, Harvard Pollak, Louis H., professor of law, Yale University-. MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD GOVERNMENT WITNESSES Sneed, Hon. Joseph T., Deputy Attorney General, statement- CONGRESSIONAL WITNESSES Page 359 426 408 380 253 Abzug, Hon. Bella S., a Representative in Congress from the State of New 499 Alexander, Hon. Bill, a Representative in Congress from the State of Arkansas, statement._ 493 Brotzman, Hon. Donald G., a Representative in Congress from the State of Colorado, statement.... 490 Evans, Hon. Frank E., a Representative in Congress from the State of Colorado, letter to Chairman Madden_-_. 491 Ford, Hon. William D., a Representative in Congress from the State of 491 Harrington, Hon. Michael J., a Representative in Congress from the State of Massachusetts, statement. 495 Hungate, Hon. William L., a Representative in Congress from the State of 489 IMPOUNDMENT REPORTING AND REVIEW WEDNESDAY, MARCH 28, 1973 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, The committee met at 10:30 a.m., pursuant to notice, in room 2154, Rayburn Office Building, Hon. Ray J. Madden (chairman of the committee) presiding. The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order. I might say that the reason why the Rules Committee is holding hearings in this room, the Government Operations Committee room, instead of our regular room over in the Capitol is because of the interest not only locally but over the Nation in the impounding legislation now pending in Congress. In these hearings we will proceed with the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, who is one of, I think, 34 Members who have filed bills on this subject. He will be followed by other witnesses today, including Mr. Cederberg, the ranking minority member of the Appropriations Committee. Tomorrow, on account of Chairman Holifield using this committee room, we will proceed with the hearings down the hall in the Foreign Affairs Committee room. I wish to thank the Foreign Affairs Committee and also Chairman. Holifield for allowing us to use their rooms. The hearings tomorrow will be in room 2172, on this floor. I might state that today we start hearings on one of the most serious constitutional challenges ever to confront Congress. The legislative impoundment crisis brought on by the Nixon administration demands firm and prompt exposure not only to the Members of Congress but to the Nation. Members of Congress and the Senate have been deluged with mail and telephone calls in protest from their constituents against President Nixon's impounding of numerous domestic programs passed by the Congress in recent years, and this legislation is for the benefit of millions of American citizens, mostly in the middle lower income brackets of the Nation. These impoundments include legislation pertaining to our elder citizens, unemployed, handicapped, veterans, and those needing Gov ernment assistance. The American public should know that since President Nixon was inaugurated over 4 years ago approximately $11.1 billion of funds have been impounded which cover legislation on housing, education, health, transportation, antipollution, hospital construction, veterans hospitals, small business loans, watershed and flood prevention, help for domestic farm labor, food stamp programs, rural electrification loans, waste, sewer facilities, and so forth. In the past 4 years we have poured billions upon billions of dollars into Southeast Asia and other countries throughout the world. Now we have concluded that war and we ought to start putting some of this money into domestic priorities where it belongs. President Nixon has set out deliberately to achieve an unwarranted concentration of power. He has sought to tighten his rule at the expense of the other branches of Government, including Congress. For several years now President Nixon has waged his undeclared war on Congress. In 1971, the Nixon administration said it would withhold more than $12 billion in highway and urban program money. The funds were not impounded to effect savings or to fight inflation. The withholding was designed solely to shift the balance of budget priorities to those projects which the administration preferred. The same bias treatment showed in the administration's handling of public works for fiscal 1972. Mr. Nixon pressed ahead with all the projects he wanted but without exception he deferred all the other projects which the Congress had voted for and which he had signed into law. And then just this year, 1973, the administration announced yet another massive impoundment-$8.7 billion in funds voted by the Congress and $6.6 billion in contract authority. President Nixon has justified much of his impoundment action as necessary to fight inflation. I think we ought to place the blame for this inflation and its skyrocketing food prices where it belongs-at President Nixon's door. The Congress voted Mr. Nixon the absolute authority to control wages, prices, interest, rents, food costs and so forth, in August 1970, and he let it remain at his desk for 1 year before he acted upon it. In August 1971, in a nationwide television broadcast, he announced his 90-day freeze which was a failure. He then followed with phase 2. and now phase 3. Read your morning papers to see how successful those phases have proven to be. I would note that President Nixon's own budgeting recommendations have helped spur inflation. This year he has submitted to the Congress his fifth consecutive big deficit budget. These deficits total more than $100 billion and they have accounted for the accumulation of one-fourth of all the national debt. The national debt is over $460 billion. In President Nixon's administration, one-fourth of that $460 billion has been saddled onto the backs of the American people. Mr. Nixon has blamed the Congress for the economic crisis he precipitated. And then he has used the economic emergency for justification for his impoundment actions. He has elevated his distaste for consultation with Congress into the doctrine he calls executive privilege, by refusing to consult with Congress. He has expanded the spurious privilege to prevent members of his staff from testifying before Congress on the Watergate scandal. When the truth is known about that matter it will eclipse all the scandals of the Harding administration, including the Teapot Dome, and all the Grant administration scandals put together. I think we ought to forget the shadowboxing on this impoundment business and have it out once and for all on the question of one-man rule. These Rules Committee hearings should greatly aid the American public on learning the true facts concerning the high cost of living. The legislation before us today will set a pattern of working relations between the Executive and the Congress during President Nixon's second term. We are going to give him every chance, offer him every cooperation. We will not be bullied by an overly ambitious Executive. We will not permit one man to substitute his preferences for the carefully deliberated judgment of 435 Members of the House of Representatives and 100 Senators all elected by the people of this country. It is up to Mr. Nixon at this time to show Congress and the Nation whether he wants a Government of cooperative but balanced powers, or whether he will leave the Congress no choice but to apply further checks to the overriding ambition and aggressiveness of the Executive. Without objection, H.R. 5193 will be inserted in the record at this point. There were no objections. [H.R. 5193, 93d Cong., First Sess.] A BILL To require the President to notify the Congress whenever he impounds funds, or authorizes the impounding of funds, and to provide a procedure under which the House of Representatives and the Senate may disapprove the President's action and require him to cease such impounding Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That (a) whenever the President impounds any funds authorized for a specific purpose or project, or approves the impounding of such funds by an officer or employee of the United States, he shall, within ten days thereafter, transmit to the House of Representatives and the Senate a special message specifying (1) the amount of funds impounded, (2) the specific projects or governmental functions affected thereby, and (3) the reasons for the impounding of such funds. (b) Each special message submitted pursuant to subsection (a) shall be transmitted to the House of Representatives and the Senate on the same day, and shall be delivered to the Clerk of the House of Representatives if the House is not in session, and to the Secretary of the Senate if the Senate is not in session. Each special message so transmitted shall be referred to the Committee on Appropriations of the House of Representatives and to the Committee on Appropriations of the Senate; and each such message shall be printed as a document for each House. SEC. 2. The President shall cease any impounding of funds set forth in a special message if within sixty calendar days of continuous session after the date on which the message is received by the Congress the specific impoundment shall have been disapproved by the Congress by passage of a concurrent resolution in accordance with the procedure set out in section 4 of this Act. SEC. 3. For purposes of this Act, the impounding of funds includes― (1) withholding or delaying the expenditure or obligation of funds (whether by establishing reserves or otherwise) appropriated for projects or activities, and the termination of authorized projects or activities for which appropriations have been made, and (2) any other type of executive action which effectively precludes the obligation or expenditure of available funds or the creation of obligations by contract in advance of appropriations as specifically authorized by law. SEC. 4. (a) The following subsections of this section are enacted by the Congress (1) as an exercise of the rulemaking power of the House of Representatives and the Senate, respectively, and as such they shall be deemed a part of the rules of each House, respectively, but applicable only with respect to the procedure to be followed in that House in the case of resolutions described by this section; and they shall supersede other rules only to the extent that they are inconsistent therewith; and (2) with full recognition of the constitutional right of either House to change the rules (so far as relating to the procedure of that House) at any time, in the same manner and to the same extent as in the case of any other rule of that House. (b) (1) For purposes of this section and section 2 the term "resolution" means only a concurrent resolution which expresses the disapproval of the Congress of an impoundment of funds set forth in a special message transmitted by the President under the first section of this Act, and which is introduced and acted upon by both the House of Representatives and the Senate before the end of the first period of sixty calendar days of continuous session of the Congress after the date on which the President's message is received by the Congress. Where a special message specifies more than one impoundment of funds, the resolution may relate to any one or more of such impoundments; and the resolution with respect to any impoundment may express the disapproval of the Congress of any amount thereof and may set forth the basis on which the impoundment is disapproved. (2) For purposes of this subsection and section 2, the continuity of a session shall be considered as broken only by an adjournment of the Congress sine die. and the days on which either House is not in session because of an adjournment of more than three days to a day certain shall be excluded in the computation of the sixty-day period referred to in paragraph (1). (c) Any resolution introduced with respect to a special message shall be referred to the Committee on Appropriations of the House of Representatives or the Senate, as the case may be. (d) (1) When the committee has reported a resolution with respect to a special message, it shall at any time thereafter be in order (even though a previous motion to the same effect has been disagreed to) to move to proceed to the consideration of the resolution. The motion shall be highly privileged and not debatable. An amendment to the motion shall not be in order, nor shall it be in order to move to reconsider the vote by which the motion is agreed to or disagreed to. (2) Debate on the resolution shall be limited to not more than two hours, which shall be divided equally between those favoring and those opposing the resolution. A motion further to limit debate shall not be debatable. No amendment to, or motion to recommit, the resolution shall be in order, and it shall not be in order to move to reconsider the vote by which the resolution is agreed to or disagreed to. (e) Motions to postpone, made with respect to the consideration of a resolution with respect to a special message, and motions to proceed to the consideration of other business, shall be decided without debate. (f) All appeals from the decisions of the Chair relating to the application of the rules of the Senate or the House of Representatives, as the case may be, to the procedure relating to any resolution referred to in section 4 hereof shall be decided without debate. The CHAIRMAN. Members of the committee, I will yield to the minority leader of the House Rules Committee, Congressman Martin, of Nebraska. Mr. MARTIN. First I would like to announce that Roy Ash, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, will be a witness before our committee. A week from Thursday on April 5, Mr. Ash will be the leadoff witness. I would like to make a brief statement which will only take 2 or 3 minutes. Mr. Chairman, the bill which we begin hearings on this morning provides that the Congress may veto cutbacks in Federal spending initiated by the President. The end effect of this legislation would simply be to increase the cost of the Federal Government to our taxpayers. |