WASHINGTON — The White House is considering challenging the constitutionality of a 50-year-old law limiting the president’s control over federal spending, easing the firing of civil servants, curbing pay and reining in independent agencies, according to a document seen by Bloomberg News.

The ideas, detailed in a slide presentation labeled “confidential,” outline the ways President Donald Trump’s administration could try to overhaul the federal bureaucracy and its workforce — though it’s unclear whether the president has the legal authority to carry out the suggested actions.

A quarrel over the Impoundment Act is a top priority for the new Trump administration as it seeks to wrestle power of the purse away from Congress and is prepared for a legal battle ahead, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The president’s initial efforts to reshape the federal government hit a roadblock on Wednesday after the White House rescinded a barely two-day-old order calling for a pause on all federal loans and grants. That order sparked widespread confusion that it could halt critical health care, food security and housing programs.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the rescission would allow the administration to enforce “the President’s orders on controlling federal spending” and vowed that Trump would soon take more executive action to “end the egregious waste of federal funding.”

The presentation — shown to staff at the White House budget office this month — shows administration officials are considering dozens of recommendations to allow Trump to take greater control of the vast federal bureaucracy, cut spending and eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

Rachel Cauley, a spokesperson for the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, denied that Trump officials have “seen this document before,” adding that “it’s pretty apparent it was generated before Trump was in office.”

The actions outlined in the document, if taken, are certain to trigger a legal battle with government workers and others who say they overstep the president’s authority.

The document includes many ideas espoused by incoming White House budget director Russ Vought, who at his confirmation hearing earlier this month said Trump believes longstanding legal limits on the president’s ability to direct spending are unconstitutional — an idea Senate Republicans have said they do not support.

The document details how the White House’s budget team is considering challenging Congress’ constitutional authority to direct federal spending. The document acknowledges a limitation: the Impoundment Control Act (ICA) of 1974 — which restricts “the President’s constitutional authority to decline expenditures, undermining the executive’s ability to ensure fiscal responsibility,” one slide reads.

The document recommends a series of actions to potentially wrestle control away from Congress, including “attempt to restore impoundment authority by challenging the ICA’s constitutionality in court, focusing on its violation of the separation of powers” and “seek legal precedent to affirm the President’s Article II powers.” Another is to “use executive orders to impound funds exceeding legislative intent or conflicting with constitutional duties, citing national security, fiscal waste, or statutory ambiguities.”

It’s unclear how many of the steps the administration will take but Trump this week has prioritized sweeping directives, including the now-rescinded funding freeze and pay-out offers to federal employees, designed to rapidly shrink the size of the US government and slash spending.

The recommendations suggest that the White House’s clearinghouse for agency rules and regulation, the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, should be able to exercise “regulatory review authority” over “historically independent agencies, as determined legally permissible by the Office of Legal Counsel.”

The independent agencies, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission, are traditionally insulated from political pressure; the agency heads can only be fired for cause.

It also says officials should propose legislation to “cap automatic pay raises, such as cost-of-living adjustments” for “higher-earning” federal employees, “reform federal compensation to align more closely with private sector benchmarks” by adjusting pay “based on regional and occupational demand rather than blanket raises” and “shift more retirement costs to employees.”

There should also be “political oversight” in employee evaluations tied to pay and promotions, that build in “explicit policy goals into performance in appraisal systems,” the document said.

Trump has already taken action on some of the recommendations in the document, including steps to remove employment protections from large swaths of federal workers in order to make it easier to dismiss workers whose views don’t align with the president. Reclassifying employees in “regulatory and policy-making civil service roles” will “facilitate the dismissal of unsupportive officials,” the document said.

He’s also renamed the United States Digital Service as “the United States DOGE Service” — after Elon Musk’s government overhaul effort, dissolved the White House Gender Policy Council and called for the elimination of DEI and “environmental justice” offices across the federal bureaucracy.

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(With assistance from Gregory Korte and Megan Scully.)

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