Rescission

A rescission cancels spending authority that has already been enacted. Under the Impoundment Control Act the president may propose one by sending a special message to Congress, and the funds may be withheld for forty-five days of continuous session while Congress considers it. If Congress does not approve the rescission within that window, the money must be released.

The statute exists because of a constitutional dispute about whether a president may simply decline to spend appropriated funds. Its answer is that withholding is permissible only temporarily and only through this procedure, which makes an attempted impoundment outside it a legal question rather than a budgetary one. The Government Accountability Office issues opinions on whether particular withholdings comply.

For coverage, the distinction that matters is between a proposal and an enacted rescission. A rescission message is a request; only legislation actually cancels the appropriations. Congress also enacts rescissions on its own initiative, frequently as offsets inside larger spending bills, where they are easy to miss.