Did Congress Just Fund The Wall Without Knowing It? - Granite Grok

Did Congress Just Fund The Wall Without Knowing It?

Matt Handelsmann Govt SpendingMike and I had a discussion last night (listen here) about a potential problem with Omnibus bills that can be summed up like this.

1. Congress allocates money to be spent. The President spends the allocated money.

2. Once Congress allocates money, their job is oversight of the money being spent. They don’t spend the money and have no say HOW it gets spent as long as it’s spent legally. That’s their job to monitor with oversight.

To that point.

President Trump tweeted something very suggestive this morning, indicating that he may use the powers of the executive to work around the $1.3 trillion abomination’s limitations on the border wall:


https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/977855968364171264

Mr. Trump has declared the opioid crisis a national emergency and a matter of national security. Given that most of those drugs come from Mexico he very well may have legal standing to pinch off a piece of the overall omnibus defense budget to build a border wall.

As we discussed in today’s podcast Thomas Lifson, writing at American Thinker, explores the situation with details collected from a series of tweets by John Salisbury, the first two points being those above. Congress gives the president money; the president spends it. They then engage in oversight of the spending.

So, about that border wall thing.

5 … the President has declared a Human Rights Emergency AND has notified Congress that he’s invoking the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985. 5. This opens up new options.

6. By making these two declarations President Trump has just communicated that he has the authority to NOT spend any funds he doesn’t deem necessary and will return them to the US Treasury. So, funds for Planned Parenthood? He can simply not allocate the funds.

7. Also, these declarations make some funds fungible. For instance, if he determines that building a Wall on the Southern Border is a defense against Human Trafficking? He can move funds from anywhere else in the Defense Dept Allocation & simply build the Wall.

Lawsuits are predicted, and a SCOTUS ruling is deemed inevitable, in favor of Mr. Trump because National Security is POTUS job One!, and not even the Supreme Court can pretend that’s not true under the circumstances as described.

And not secondarily, Mr. Trump can and will use all that other omnibus-budget-busting finery to leverage his priorities over congress who are now in an awkward position. Or he’ll just not spend those bits. Possibly a little of both.

No, I’m not holding my breath, and yes the Republicans in Congress are still on the hook for pushing and passing this epic abuse. But if Mr. Trump does as is implied in these reports, he will be correct about one thing. Congress will never send him another Omnibus budget again. Never again, I think he said.

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