As pundits imagine the coming Trump presidency, much of the attention has focused on the most extreme measures he has promised to implement, from mass deportations to abolishing the Department of Education. Yet these may pale in significance next to his promise to use something less showy but ultimately more far reaching: impoundment.

The term refers to the controversial claim that the president can “impound” funds appropriated by Congress, refusing to use them as specified by budget legislation. It’s akin to a line-item veto, except that instead of vetoing a specific appropriation so that the money is never spent, the funds are delivered to the executive branch and then confiscated. At that point the president spends the money on another program or holds it in reserve.

Like many of Trump’s contentious policies, this one is not without precedent — which is not the same as saying that it’s a good idea. Impoundment has a long history in the U.S., including when it triggered a crisis of sorts in the 1970s. That incident in particular could provide a roadmap for what the nation should expect if Trump goes ahead with his plans.

The first president to try his hand at impounding was Thomas Jefferson. In 1803, he refused to spend money allocated for buying gunboats, arguing that the need for them — defending rivers against British incursions — had passed, thanks to “the favorable & peaceable turn of affairs.”

Notably, Jefferson framed this decision in terms of economy and efficiency, not presidential prerogative. He was serving as a steward of taxpayer funds, refusing to spend appropriated monies that were no longer needed. When Jefferson moved beyond this justification and tried to refuse to pay the salaries of government officials he disliked, Congress cried foul, and the president backed down.

For the rest of the century, presidents typically justified impoundment on the same grounds as Jefferson had, holding back funds when circumstances rendered the original appropriation moot. The one major exception was President Ulysses S. Grant’s refusal to spend funds appropriated for harbor and river improvements, arguing that the bill was suspect because it funded ”works of purely private or local interest, in no sense national.”

This move provoked howls of protest from Congress, with one representative declaring: “What right has this great Caesar to decide what are and what are not national, when the American Congress has decided the question by making these appropriations.” Grant’s critics in Congress warned that these impoundments signaled a dangerous attempt to undermine Congress and its power of the purse.

In 1906, Congress decided to recognize the more accepted version of impoundment by passing the Anti-Deficiency Act, which allowed the president to waive or modify appropriations if “some extraordinary emergency or unusual circumstances (occurred) which could not be anticipated at the time of making such apportionment…”

For the next 60-plus years, presidents and Congress sparred over the precise meaning of these words, with each getting the upper hand at various times. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt pushed the envelope more than most, citing wartime powers as justification to prune specific programs.

Several of his successors — Presidents Harry Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Lyndon Johnson — did the same, impounding funds on occasion. These moves, though, overwhelmingly related to the president’s role as commander-in-chief and focused on defense appropriations, not other forms of spending. They provoked grumbling in Congress, but not a constitutional crisis.

In 1967, President Johnson impounded funds that Congress had appropriated for several different domestic programs, including money allocated for the construction of highways. He did so on the grounds that these expenditures would contribute to inflation, which had already begun to tick upward.

Though Johnson’s impoundment marked a break with precedent, it was not generally perceived as evidence of an out-of-control executive branch. First, Johnson was holding back money for programs he supported, only reluctantly impounding funds to deal with the bigger problem of inflation. Second, Congress supported many of these impoundments on much the same grounds.

All of this helps explain why President Richard Nixon’s record of impoundment was the first to come close to triggering a constitutional crisis. The clash began in 1972, when Congress passed legislation amending what's now known as the Clean Water Act, appropriating funds for this purpose. Nixon vetoed the legislation; Congress hit back and overrode the veto.

Normally, this would have been the end of the matter, but Nixon raised the stakes, impounding the funds appropriated in the legislation. In doing so, he broke with precedent, explicitly using impoundment to override Congress after the legislative branch overrode his own veto.

Nixon was clearly spoiling for a fight. Though he nominally justified his actions on the grounds that he was fighting inflation and trying to keep taxes low, he was actually after something bigger: a permanent increase in presidential power at the expense of Congress. In a press conference in 1973, he put the matter bluntly, claiming a “constitutional right for the president of the United States to impound funds.” He went on to describe this right as “absolutely clear.”

Congress wasn’t pleased. Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina declared: “Impoundment does not save anybody any money, nor does it lead to lower taxes. It is merely a means whereby the White House can give effect to the social goals of its own choosing by reallocating national resources in contravention of congressional dictates.”

Ervin and his colleagues decided to do something about it. In 1974, they passed the Impoundment Control Act, which barred Nixon (and future presidents) from unilateral impoundment of funds. It also established a process by which a president could propose to rescind appropriations. Congress, though, would need to pass a law approving the rescission.

Donald Trump, who apparently venerated Nixon (and becoming a confidant of his after Watergate) seems ready to to pick up where Nixon left off, impounding funds in the hopes that the fight will go to the courts, ultimately overturning the Impoundment Control Act.

Perhaps Trump will succeed where Nixon did not. Still, Nixon’s unsuccessful gambit is a useful reminder that Congress has protected its prerogatives in the past — and may do so again.

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This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Stephen Mihm, a professor of history at the University of Georgia, is coauthor of “Crisis Economics: A Crash Course in the Future of Finance.”

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