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A top Senate Republican on Thursday accused President Trump of illegally refusing to spend $2.9 billion approved by Congress, teaming with Democrats in an early salvo in the simmering struggle between Congress and the White House over which has the ultimate power over federal spending.
Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine and the chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee, initiated a letter to the White House that was signed by Senator Patty Murray of Washington, the panel’s senior Democrat. The letter asserted that the administration had violated the six-month spending law approved by Congress earlier this month.
They pointed to a memo Mr. Trump had sent to Congress on Monday that declared that only a portion of the $12.4 billion designated as emergency funding in the legislation would actually be spent, “because I do not concur that the added spending is truly for emergency needs.”
The appropriators vigorously contested that assertion, arguing that the law requires the administration to spend all emergency money or none of it, and does not allow the president to decide for himself what money to spend and what not to. “Just as the president does not have a line-item veto, he does not have the ability to pick and choose which emergency spending to designate,” the letter said.
They noted that the Trump administration’s interpretation of federal budget law was at odds with how presidents of both parties had viewed it for two decades. “It is incumbent on all of us to follow the law as written — not as we would like it to be,” Ms. Collins and Ms. Murray wrote.
It also withheld $115 million for international narcotics control and enforcement, a decision singled out by Ms. Collins as particularly confounding. “Why would you want to do that, given the huge drug problem that we have had?” she said in an interview. “We need the help of other nations to stop that.”
Ms. Murray, in a speech on the Senate floor on Thursday, said the White House and its allies were ignoring a clear constitutional provision that gives Congress the power to set spending. “Right now we have a couple of billionaires running our country straight into the ground who seem to have skipped American history because President Trump and Elon Musk don’t seem to care much about our Constitution,” she said. She pointed to the provision that “no money shall be drawn from the Treasury but in consequence of appropriations made by law.”
“Their lack of interest in that section of the Constitution doesn’t make it any less real at all,” she said. The decision by Ms. Collins to challenge the administration was notable since many Republicans on Capitol Hill have been silent on the administration’s attempts to assert extraordinary power over federal spending.
© 2015 Mutual Fund Observer. All rights reserved.
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Comments
We're willing to overlook national security protocols but don't go messing around with our money!
They should all be deeply ashamed but I'm fairly certain that none of them are.
That being said, it's "nice" that somebody in Congress made a sound. Tired of hearing crickets from the Hill.
"The Appropriations Clause would appear to categorically enjoin the President and federal agencies to spend funds only as appropriated by Congress. Even where the President believes that federal spending is urgently needed, spending in the absence of appropriations is constitutionally prohibited."
https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/articles/article-i/clauses/756
"In Train v. City of New York, the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972 established a program for federal financial support for municipal sewers and sewage treatment works. The Act allowed for the appropriation of specific maximum amounts over three fiscal years, which were supposed to be allotted by the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). However, following a directive from the President, the Administrator allotted less than the authorized amounts for fiscal years 1973 and 1974. As a result, the City of New York filed a class action lawsuit, seeking a declaratory judgment that the Administrator was required to allot the full authorized amounts, along with an order to make such allotments."
"The U.S. Supreme Court reasoned that the language of the Act, particularly § 205(a) and § 207, indicated that the full amounts authorized for appropriation must be allotted by the Administrator. The Court found that Congress did not intend to give the Executive Branch discretionary control over the rate of allotments. The phrase 'not to exceed' in § 207 was interpreted as setting a maximum but not allowing for discretion to allot less than the authorized amounts unless there were insufficient projects to obligate the full amounts."
https://studicata.com/case-briefs/case/train-v-city-of-new-york/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_literacy