My predecessor in Iowa’s Third Congressional District was known as “a watchdog to the Treasury.” During 13 terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, Congressman Harold Royce (H.R.) Gross kept a tight-fisted grip on the federal purse strings, pulling no punches on pork-barrel spending.

Just three months before I was elected to Congress in 1974, President Gerald Ford delivered an address to a Joint Session of Congress. He spoke about the urgent need to rein in federal spending to bring down inflation. Like H.R. Gross, President Ford believed in limited government. In his address on Aug. 12, 1974, he said “a government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have.”

Earlier that year, Congress passed the Impoundment Control Act that legislated the president’s use of impoundments into two categories: the temporary delay of spending or a permanent rescission. So, while impoundments aren’t new, there’s been a lot of discussion about them in recent weeks.

The 1974 law provides a pathway for the cancellation of spending previously approved by the legislative branch. The framework requires the president to submit spending rescission requests to Congress. Upon receipt, the funds may be frozen for 45 days of continuous legislative session. If Congress doesn’t take action to rescind or deny the request within that window of time, the funds must be released.

Congress regularly considers its own rescissions during the appropriations process as a tool for fiscal discipline to offset other spending priorities. Just because a federal agency has been provided budgetary authority to finance its activities, that doesn’t preclude the executive or legislative branches from finding savings to foster more efficient and effective government operations.

Consider a family budget. If the utility bill is lower than expected, say in June, that doesn’t oblige a family to crank up the air conditioning in July to ensure every penny budgeted for energy costs is spent.

Throughout our nation’s history, America’s presidents have exercised discretion on spending taxpayer dollars approved by Congress. For example, when Thomas Jefferson addressed Congress on October 17, 1803, he explained $50,000 appropriated by lawmakers for gunboats on the Mississippi River weren’t needed to secure the peaceful purchase of the Louisiana territory. Examples of the executive branch cinching the federal purse strings continued into the following century, including FDR, Truman, Kennedy and Nixon.

The friction between the executive and legislative branches came to a head with passage of the Impoundment Control Act. In that measure, Congress sought to reclaim its constitutional “power of the purse” authority. The law provides statutory mechanisms for Congress to approve or deny the executive branch from freezing or impounding appropriated funds under an expedited review process.

From 1974 to 2008, U.S. presidents requested 1,178 rescissions totaling more than $76 billion under the Impoundment Control Act. In that time frame, Congress approved nearly one-third of those requests for roughly $40 billion in savings enacted. During that same time period, Congress led 1,880 rescission initiatives totaling $197 billion.

For example, President Clinton on July 27, 1995, signed into law a package cutting $16 billion in “unnecessary spending” to make a down payment on a balanced budget.

The Republican Revolution of 1994 pushed Washington to tighten its belt, prodding President Clinton to declare the “era of big government is over” in his 1996 State of the Union Address. Later that year, Congress passed the Line Item Veto Act, amending the Impoundment Control Act to augment the president’s rescission authority. Money vetoed using this tool could be used only for deficit reduction. This fiscal mindset helped deliver a string of balanced budgets from 1998 to 2001.

However, the Line Item Veto was a short-lived tool for fiscal discipline. To my disappointment, the Supreme Court delivered a blow to the taxpayer by ruling the law unconstitutional 18 months after its enactment in Clinton v. City of New York.

It’s been a quarter-century since Washington balanced its books. The sea of red ink in annual deficit spending has contributed to the nation’s $36 trillion debt. That has real consequences on the budget. According to estimates from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, more tax dollars under current policies will be soaked up on interest payments to service the debt than on defense or Medicare every year for the next decade.

In June, President Trump sent a $9 billion rescissions package to Congress, kick-starting the 45-day clock on Capitol Hill. Congress approved the savings and I expect more rescission requests to come from the White House during Trump’s second term. Putting America first means restoring financial independence and paying our bills, not endless borrowing.

In his Farewell Address to the nation, George Washington warned the republic about the dangers of debt that “ungenerously throw[ing] upon posterity the burden which we ourselves ought to bear.”

My predecessor in the U.S. House dedicated his career to keeping Uncle Sam’s hand out of taxpayer pockets. A framed quote in his congressional office reflects a Midwestern mindset: “Nothing is easier than expenditure of public money. It does not appear to belong to anybody. The temptation is overwhelming to bestow it on somebody.”

This lifelong Iowa farmer agrees with H.R. Gross and the Father of our Country. Living high on the hog today is an immoral burden on the next generation.

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Chuck Grassley, a Republican from New Hartford, represents Iowa in the United States Senate.