| The Environmental Protection Agency was among seven federal agencies that improperly impounded appropriations by Congress last year in violation of rules imposed after President Nixon clashed with Congress over the power of the purse more than three decades ago.
The Government Accountability Office, Congress' watchdog agency, discovered that $471 million worth of funds had been withheld by various agencies after Bush proposed cutting previously appropriated funds to help pay for hurricane relief. The EPA improperly withheld $166 million in clean water grants to states and Indian tribes for almost two months, while the Labor Department has yet to release $45 million in grants for job training and other programs for youthful offenders. The clash with Congress comes as Bush is proposing to kill 91 programs in the upcoming fiscal year to save $7.3 billion. Some lawmakers worry that agencies will be slow to dole out money for programs like grants for safe and drug free schools and vocational education. "This administration is constantly trying to push aside the Congress and pay little heed to the Constitution," said Sen. Robert C. Byrd (news, bio, voting record), D-W.Va., perhaps the stoutest protector of Congress' prerogatives. "When the President signs an appropriations law, the executive branch is supposed to spend the money for the purpose for which it was appropriated, not impound the money in the Treasury in Washington." |
They cannot be serious, can they? They're borrowing directly from Nixon's playbook? Really?
--------
0 TrackBacks
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: NIXON-REDUX.
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://blog.alexwhalen.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/447
Subscribe to this blog's feed
Leave a comment