AP U.S. Government and Politics Glossary

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Jonathan Milner Jonathan Milner

Impoundment

Definition

A traditional budgeting procedure by which the President of the United States once could prevent any agency of the Executive Branch from spending part or all of the money previously appropriated by Congress for their use. He would accomplish this, in essence, by an executive order that would forbid the Treasury to transfer the money in question to the agency's account. (The Constitution provides that no money from the Treasury can be spent without a specific Congressional appropriation, but it is silent on the question of whether all money appropriated by Congress actually has to be spent.) All American presidents since John Adams asserted the right to impound appropriated funds, and presidents often used this as a way of making relatively small cuts in Federal spending on programs that they deemed unwise or unnecessary, despite occasional murmurings of dissatisfaction from Congressmen annoyed by the cancellation or trimming of some of their pet pork-barrel projects.

Example

 
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Questions

  1. What is impoundment?

  2. What branches of government are involved in impoundment?

  3. Is impoundment constitutional?

  4. Why would a president use impoundment?

  5. Why would the congress not like impoundment?

  6. A Haiku is a Japanese form of poetry that has three lines. It has five syllables in the first and third lines. It has seven syllables in the second line. Its lines don't rhyme. Write a Haiku about impoundment that you can share with older family members.

  7. What was the last time there was an impoundment in US government?

  8. Members of he band Khruangbin -which is Thai for airplane - now live in three states: Texas, California, and New York. Could President Biden impound them and make them play at a state dinner in the White House?

Remember!

Now, let’s commit this term to our long-term memory. On a scrap piece of paper, take 10 or 20 seconds to draw referendum. Draw with symbols or stick figures if you wish. Nothing fancy. Don’t expect a masterpiece. No one else will see this but you. Look at your drawing. That’s all - now it’s downloaded into your memory. Destroy the piece of paper in a most delightful way.

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