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A controversial idea to hand even more power to the president

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LEADING THE Office of Management and Budget (OMB) may sound mundane, but the role is one of Washington’s most important. Russell Vought, who did the job for the final two years of Donald Trump’s first term, is poised to return. After a confirmation vote planned for the coming days, he is expected to test the bounds of presidential power as the new administration tries to reshape the federal government.

In his confirmation hearing on January 15th, Mr Vought told senators he would follow through on Mr Trump’s vow to pursue “impoundment”. This is the practice of presidents refusing to spend funds that Congress has appropriated, shifting power to the White House. To take a current example, Mr Trump has issued an executive order putting an “immediate pause” on billions of dollars appropriated under the Inflation Reduction Act of 2021 and a climate law from 2022. No money will go out for current projects—including new roads, bridges and electric-vehicle charging stations—until the administration decides which efforts are “consistent with any review recommendations” Trump officials “have chosen to adopt”. The same applies to military aid for Ukraine.

Mr Trump ran “on the issue of impoundment”, Mr Vought said at his hearing, and “200 years of presidents have used this authority”. He said the Impoundment Control Act (ICA) of 1974, passed to rein in presidents after Richard Nixon held back billions of dollars for education, the armed forces and the environment, was unconstitutional. (It is one of several Watergate-era constraints on the presidency that Mr Trump wants to be rid of.) His inner circle is speaking as one on the matter. In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal after the election, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy wrote that Mr Trump could cut federal spending “through executive action alone”.

During Mr Trump’s first term Mr Vought participated in the freezing of $214m in military aid for Ukraine—an impoundment that led to Mr Trump’s first impeachment in 2019. In his hearing this month, Mr Vought noted the funds were eventually released after a “policy process” carried out by the administration. He repeated that phrase (a justification for blocking funds deemed incompatible with a president’s policies) five times during his two-hour appearance before the committee.

Mr Vought’s colleagues at his think-tank, the Centre for Renewing America, made the constitutional and historical case for impoundment in a pair of blog posts and a white paper last year. The primary author, Mark Paoletta, was the top lawyer at the OMB in Mr Trump’s first term and has been tapped for that post again. Impoundment is a “key tool”, Mr Paoletta writes, “to ensure that the constellation of congressional funding measures are implemented in a lawful and reasonable manner that ensures good governance”. The authority flows, he argues, from several corners of the constitution, including a clause in Article II requiring presidents to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed”. “[I]f an appropriation violates the constitution”, Mr Paoletta declares, “the president may impound it.”

Presidents have been impounding for centuries, says Mr Paoletta. In 1803, Thomas Jefferson opted not to spend $50,000 Congress pegged for gunboats on the Mississippi. Franklin Roosevelt impounded extensively during the Depression and the second world war. Harry Truman delayed spending funds meant for veterans’ hospitals. John Kennedy impounded nearly half of the $380m Congress appropriated for the B-70 strategic bomber. In sum, Mr Paoletta claims, “Congress’s power of the purse” has always been intended to establish a “ceiling” for executive spending, never a “floor”.

Zachary Price, a law professor at the University of California at San Francisco, counters that “the president has no constitutional power of impoundment”. Jefferson’s unbought gunboats had been funded by a law that “authorised expenditure without requiring it”, Mr Price points out. In the words of the statute, the president could buy “a number not exceeding fifteen gun boats” using “a sum not exceeding fifty thousand dollars”. This built-in discretion was common in statutes for decades. And even when the language grew less flexible, Mr Price explains, Congress usually allocated funds in a “permissive rather than mandatory” way. Until Nixon, impoundments “did not involve any assertion of constitutional authority to act contrary to congressional directives”.

The ICA made this norm binding. When a president wishes to delay an expenditure he must send a special note informing Congress and must spend the money by the end of the fiscal year. He cannot cancel a payment outright without Congress’s explicit approval. Eloise Pasachoff, a law professor at Georgetown, sees little basis for challenging the constitutionality of the ICA. In 1998, the Supreme Court struck down the line-item veto—impoundment by another name—because it permitted presidents to usurp Congress’s authority. Even the archconservative Justice Antonin Scalia, Ms Pasachoff points out, “literally rejects impoundment theory” in his separate opinion in that case.

Some members of Congress favour repealing the ICA. Mike Lee, a senator from Utah, derides the act as a “Watergate-era relic” and in December introduced legislation to do away with it. But there are not enough votes to pass such a law. That leaves the courts as the best avenue for Mr Vought and Co to get their way.

Who might fight back in court? Not disgruntled lawmakers, as individual members of Congress do not have standing to sue. Ms Pasachoff says there are plenty of potential plaintiffs: states, cities and defence contractors, for example. Any actual or potential recipients of funds competing for contracts or applying for grants—in fields like information technology or construction—could get to court by showing the president’s tight-fistedness harmed them. But establishing “standing” (the right to bring a claim in court) may not be so easy, Matt Lawrence of Emory University says, as there are “significant barriers to judicial review of spending decisions”.

Economics

ADP jobs report March 2025:

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Attendees check in during a job fair at the YMCA Gerard Carter Center on March 27, 2025 in the Stapleton Heights neighborhood of the Staten Island borough in New York City. 

Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images

Private payroll gains were stronger than expected in March, countering fears that the labor market and economy are slowing, according to a report Wednesday from ADP.

Companies added 155,000 jobs for the month, a sharp increase from the upwardly revised 84,000 in February and better than the Dow Jones consensus forecast for 120,000, the payrolls processing firm said.

The upside surprise comes amid worries that President Donald Trump’s aggressive tariffs could deter firms from adding to headcount and in turn slow business and consumer activity. Trump is set to announce the next step in his trade policy Wednesday at 4 p.m.

Hiring was fairly broad based, with professional and business services adding 57,000 workers while financial activities grew by 38,000 as tax season heats up. Manufacturing contributed 21,000 and leisure and hospitality added 17,000.

Service providers were responsible for 132,000 of the positions. On the downside, trade, transportation and utilities saw a loss of 6,000 jobs and natural resources and mining declined by 3,000.

On the wage side, earnings rose by 4.6% year over year for those staying in their positions and 6.5% for job changers. The gap between the two matched a series low last hit in September, suggesting a lower level of mobility for workers wanting to switch jobs.

Still, the overall numbers indicate a solid labor market. Recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics indicates that the level of open positions is now almost even with available workers, reversing a trend in which openings outnumbered the unemployed by 2 to 1 a couple years ago.

The ADP report comes ahead of the more closely watched BLS measure of nonfarm payrolls. The BLS report, which unlike ADP includes government jobs, is expected to show payroll growth of 140,000 in March, down slightly from 151,000 in February. The two counts sometimes show substantial disparities due to different methodologies.

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Economics

Trump tariffs’ effect on consumer prices debated by economists

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The U.S. government is set to increase tariff rates on several categories of imported products. Some economists tracking these trade proposals say the higher tariff rates could lead to higher consumer prices.

One model constructed by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston suggests that in an “extreme” scenario, heightened taxes on U.S. imports could result in a 1.4 percentage point to 2.2 percentage point increase to core inflation. This scenario assumes 60% tariff rates on Chinese imports and 10% tariff rates on imports from all other countries.

The researchers note that many other tariff proposals have surfaced since they published their findings in February 2025. 

Price increases could come across many categories, including new housing and automobiles, alongside consumer services such as nursing, public transportation and finance. 

“People might think, ‘Oh, tariffs can only affect the goods that I buy. It can’t affect the services,'” said Hillary Stein, an economist at the Boston Fed. “Those hospitals are buying inputs that might be, for example, … medical equipment that comes from abroad.” 

White House economists say tariffs will not meaningfully contribute to inflation. In a statement to CNBC, Stephen Miran, chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, said that “as the world’s largest source of consumer demand, the U.S. holds all the leverage, which means foreign suppliers will have to eat the economic burden or ‘incidence’ of the tariffs.” 

Assessing the impact of the administration’s full economic agenda has been a challenge for central bank leaders. The Federal Open Market Committee decided to leave its target for the federal funds rate unchanged at the meeting in March. 

The Fed targets its overnight borrowing rate at between 4.25% and 4.5%, with the effective federal funds rate at 4.33% on March 31, according to the New York Fed. The core personal consumption expenditures price index inflation rate rose to 2.8% in February, according to the Commerce Department. Forecasts of U.S. gross domestic product suggest that the economy will continue to grow at a 1.7% rate in 2025, albeit at a slower pace than what was forecast in January.  

Consumers in the U.S. and businesses around the world are bracing for impact. 
 
“There is a reason why companies went outside of the U.S.,” said Gregor Hirt, chief investment officer at Allianz Global Investors. “Most of the time it was because it was cheaper and more productive.” 

Watch the video above to learn how much inflation tariffs may cause.

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Economics

Trump’s tariff gambit will raise the stakes for an economy already looking fragile

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U.S. President Donald Trump speaks alongside entertainer Kid Rock before signing an executive order in the Oval Office of the White House on March 31, 2025 in Washington, DC. 

Andrew Harnik | Getty Images

President Donald Trump is set Wednesday to begin the biggest gamble of his nascent second term, wagering that broad-based tariffs on imports will jumpstart a new era for the U.S. economy.

The stakes couldn’t be higher.

As the president prepares his “liberation day” announcement, household sentiment is at multi-year lows. Consumers worry that the duties will spark another round of painful inflation, and investors are fretting that higher prices will mean lower profits and a tougher slog for the battered stock market.

What Trump is promising is a new economy not dependent on deficit spending, where Canada, Mexico, China and Europe no longer take advantage of the U.S. consumer’s desire for ever-cheaper products.

The big problem right now is no one outside the administration knows quite how those goals will be achieved, and what will be the price to pay.

“People always want everything to be done immediately and have to know exactly what’s going on,” said Joseph LaVorgna, who served as a senior economic advisor during Trump’s first term in office. “Negotiations themselves don’t work that way. Good things take time.”

For his part, LaVorgna, who is now chief economist at SMBC Nikko Securities, is optimistic Trump can pull it off, but understands why markets are rattled by the uncertainty of it all.

“This is a negotiation, and it needs to be judged in the fullness of time,” he said. “Eventually we’re going to get some details and some clarity, and to me, everything will fit together. But right now, we’re at that point where it’s just too soon to know exactly what the implementation is likely to look like.”

Here’s what we do know: The White House intends to implement “reciprocal” tariffs against its trading partners. In other words, the U.S. is going to match what other countries charge to import American goods into their countries. Most recently, a figure of 20% blanket tariffs has been bandied around, though LaVorgna said he expects the number to be around 10%, but something like 60% for China.

What is likely to emerge, though, will be far more nuanced as Trump seeks to reduce a record $131.4 billion U.S. trade deficit. Trump professes his ability to make deals, and the saber-rattling of draconian levies on other countries is all part of the strategy to get the best arrangement possible where more goods are manufactured domestically, boosting American jobs and providing a fairer landscape for trade.

The consequences, though, could be rough in the near term.

Potential inflation impact

On their surface, tariffs are a tax on imports and, theoretically, are inflationary. In practice, though, it doesn’t always work that way.

During his first term, Trump imposed heavy tariffs with nary a sign of longer-term inflation outside of isolated price increases. That’s how Federal Reserve economists generally view tariffs — a one-time “transitory” blip but rarely a generator of fundamental inflation.

This time, though, could be different as Trump attempts something on a scale not seen since the disastrous Smoot-Hawley tariffs in 1930 that kicked off a global trade war and would be the worst-case scenario of the president’s ambitions.

“This could be a major rewiring of the domestic economy and of the global economy, a la Thatcher, a la Reagan, where you get a more enabled private sector, streamlined government, a fair trading system,” Mohamed El-Erian, the Allianz chief economic advisor, said Tuesday on CNBC. “Alternatively, if we get tit-for-tat tariffs, we slip into stagflation, and that stagflation becomes well anchored, and that becomes problematic.”

Tariffs could be a major rewiring of the domestic and global economy, says Mohamed El-Erian

The U.S. economy already is showing signs of a stagflationary impulse, perhaps not along the lines of the 1970s and early ’80s but nevertheless one where growth is slowing and inflation is proving stickier than expected.

Goldman Sachs has lowered its projection for economic growth this year to barely positive. The firm is citing the “the sharp recent deterioration in household and business confidence” and second-order impacts of tariffs as administration officials are willing to trade lower growth in the near term for their longer-term trade goals.

Federal Reserve officials last month indicated an expectation of 1.7% gross domestic product growth this year; using the same metric, Goldman projects GDP to rise at just a 1% rate.

In addition, Goldman raised its recession risk to 35% this year, though it sees growth holding positive in the most-likely scenario.

Broader economic questions

However, Luke Tilley, chief economist at Wilmington Trust, thinks the recession risk is even higher at 40%, and not just because of tariff impacts.

“We were already on the pessimistic side of the spectrum,” he said. “A lot of that is coming from the fact that we didn’t think the consumer was strong enough heading into the year, and we see growth slowing because of the tariffs.”

Tilley also sees the labor market weakening as companies hold off on hiring as well as other decisions such as capital expenditure-type investments in their businesses.

That view on business hesitation was backed up Tuesday in an Institute for Supply Management survey in which respondents cited the uncertain climate as an obstacle to growth.

“Customers are pausing on new orders as a result of uncertainty regarding tariffs,” said a manager in the transportation equipment industry. “There is no clear direction from the administration on how they will be implemented, so it’s harder to project how they will affect business.”

While Tilley thinks the concern over tariffs causing long-term inflation is misplaced — Smoot-Hawley, for instance, actually ended up being deflationary — he does see them as a danger to an already-fragile consumer and economy as they could tend to weaken activity further.

“We think of the tariffs as just being such a weight on growth. It would drive up prices in the initial couple [inflation] readings, but it would create so much economic weakness that they would end up being net deflationary,” he said. “They’re a tax hike, they’re contractionary, they’re going to weigh on the economy.”

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