The first use of the power by President Thomas Jefferson involved refusal to spend $50,000 ($1.24 million in 2023) in funds appropriated for the acquisition of gunboats for the United States Navy.
The Act effectively removed the impoundment power of the president and required him to obtain Congressional approval if he wants to rescind specific government spending.
President Nixon signed the Act with little protest because the administration was then embroiled in the Watergate scandal and unwilling to provoke Congress.
[7] The Line Item Veto Act of 1996 gave the president the power of line-item veto, which President Bill Clinton applied to the federal budget 82 times[8][9] before the law was struck down in 1998 by the Supreme Court[10] on the grounds of it being in violation of the Presentment Clause of the United States Constitution.
Donald Trump and appointees to his second administration argued the Impoundment Control Act is unconstitutional, though few legal scholars agree.
[11] Trump's assertion of this power resulted in the 2025 United States federal government grant pause, which was put on hold by a preliminary court injunction before it took effect.