Nixon signs Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act, stripping future presidents of unilateral spending freeze power

President Nixon signed Pub. L. 93-344 on July 12, 1974, one month before his resignation. The act created the Congressional Budget Office as a nonpartisan fiscal analyst, established the modern budget reconciliation process, and required any presidential impoundment to go through Congress — either as a temporary deferral subject to legislative override or a rescission requiring affirmative congressional approval within 45 days. The law fundamentally realigned the constitutional power of the purse back toward Congress after Nixon's two-year campaign to use impoundment as a de facto line-item veto.