Quote (Goomshill @ Feb 16 2025 01:39pm)

There has been historically plenty of wiggle room for presidents to either conjure funding that loosely circumvented congress through trickery and redirection of appropriations, and cutting funding by pausing or indefinitely delaying appropriated funding. Some which gets upheld and some struck down in courts.
Congress appropriated money for immigration enforcement. The Obama administration decided not to arrest certain classes of illegal aliens under its DACA program, refused to spend the money on immigration in the way congress wanted. It took decades of the case being bounced around courts to be eventually struck down, but it certainly went into effect for a long time, and so did Obama redirecting billions from the judgment fund continuing appropriation to Iran for his nuclear deal payments, without congressional approval, by the contrivance of finding an ancient lawsuit by Iran and "settling" it.

Trump's spending freezes are predicated on a few interpretations of constitutional powers. One legal theory he cites holds that he still has the power of impoundment, which the president had formally until the Nixon administration when congress passed a bill ending impoundment and Nixon signed it meekly because he was fighting Watergate. The Trump argument is this was an unconstitutional infringement of the power of the executive and therefore has no effect. And that legal showdown over impoundment is precisely what Trump hopes to hash out at the supreme court. I can't tell you which way it will go, but I can say there are valid arguments for why it would be congress infringing on the executive or the executive infringing on congress, and a law passed by congress and signed by the president cannot override that constitutional separation of powers either way, so the law itself is irrelevant.

It also comes down to arguments over the practical necessity of implementation of congress's law by the executive. Congress can authorize spending, but the executive still has to interpret the laws and how to carry them out and resolve ambiguities, and that was the big showdown over Chevron Doctrine at the supreme court. Congress does not micromanage the vast majority of appropriations, rather they go to agencies and bureaucracies who distribute them on their own priorities and authorities. Its like the pound of flesh technicality, if you argued the executive must spend exactly the amount congress authorizes on every specific point, you create an impossible set of conditions when congressional appropriations are usually open ended and cover projects and social programs at a top level of total expected costs for each fiscal year, leaving it up to agencies to try to balance their budget (and infamously, requiring every agency to spend its full appropriation or congress having a reason to cut it next year)


So its definitely not just as simple as saying, "congress allocates the money and it must be spent as they demanded". The executive has to take care that the money is faithfully executed. And there's plenty of argument both for and against the freezing of funds that congress has appropriated and the president thinks are being wasted by executive bureaucracy.

Quote (Goomshill @ 16 Feb 2025 13:39)

There has been historically plenty of wiggle room for presidents to either conjure funding that loosely circumvented congress through trickery and redirection of appropriations, and cutting funding by pausing or indefinitely delaying appropriated funding. Some which gets upheld and some struck down in courts.
Congress appropriated money for immigration enforcement. The Obama administration decided not to arrest certain classes of illegal aliens under its DACA program, refused to spend the money on immigration in the way congress wanted. It took decades of the case being bounced around courts to be eventually struck down, but it certainly went into effect for a long time, and so did Obama redirecting billions from the judgment fund continuing appropriation to Iran for his nuclear deal payments, without congressional approval, by the contrivance of finding an ancient lawsuit by Iran and "settling" it.

Trump's spending freezes are predicated on a few interpretations of constitutional powers. One legal theory he cites holds that he still has the power of impoundment, which the president had formally until the Nixon administration when congress passed a bill ending impoundment and Nixon signed it meekly because he was fighting Watergate. The Trump argument is this was an unconstitutional infringement of the power of the executive and therefore has no effect. And that legal showdown over impoundment is precisely what Trump hopes to hash out at the supreme court. I can't tell you which way it will go, but I can say there are valid arguments for why it would be congress infringing on the executive or the executive infringing on congress, and a law passed by congress and signed by the president cannot override that constitutional separation of powers either way, so the law itself is irrelevant.

It also comes down to arguments over the practical necessity of implementation of congress's law by the executive. Congress can authorize spending, but the executive still has to interpret the laws and how to carry them out and resolve ambiguities, and that was the big showdown over Chevron Doctrine at the supreme court. Congress does not micromanage the vast majority of appropriations, rather they go to agencies and bureaucracies who distribute them on their own priorities and authorities. Its like the pound of flesh technicality, if you argued the executive must spend exactly the amount congress authorizes on every specific point, you create an impossible set of conditions when congressional appropriations are usually open ended and cover projects and social programs at a top level of total expected costs for each fiscal year, leaving it up to agencies to try to balance their budget (and infamously, requiring every agency to spend its full appropriation or congress having a reason to cut it next year)


So its definitely not just as simple as saying, "congress allocates the money and it must be spent as they demanded". The executive has to take care that the money is faithfully executed. And there's plenty of argument both for and against the freezing of funds that congress has appropriated and the president thinks are being wasted by executive bureaucracy.

Quote (colorful @ Feb 16 2025 12:04pm)

dont believe thats his motive, i believe his motive to be transparency...which is what every american should want.

Quote (SkySwallower @ Feb 16 2025 10:22am)

Transparency is not a motive. Musk is doing whatever he is doing for exactly two things:

1. Getting richer/more powerful
2. Appearing smart and getting the praise his father never gave him

The one thing you can hope for is that he is leading DOGE for mostly reason 2, but I have a feeling that sooner or later it will become clear how exactly Musk personally profitted at the cost of the taxpayer from what he is doing now.

Quote (Malopox @ Feb 16 2025 04:03am)

Can an adult in the room please explain this?

Power of the purse sits firmly with Congress, Trump is not allowed to initiate or cut funding to projects initiated by Congress.

DOGE (USDS) seems to be doing just that. This judge is trying to prevent an abuse of power then? What nuance am I missing?

I bet ^Goomshill knows?

Quote (colorful @ Feb 16 2025 08:27am)

Say what you will, his net worth has dropped 50 billion since trump took office and he started working

Quote (Malopox @ 16 Feb 2025 03:03)

Can an adult in the room please explain this?

Power of the purse sits firmly with Congress, Trump is not allowed to initiate or cut funding to projects initiated by Congress.

DOGE (USDS) seems to be doing just that. This judge is trying to prevent an abuse of power then? What nuance am I missing?

I bet ^Goomshill knows?

Quote (colorful @ Feb 16 2025 04:27pm)

Say what you will, his net worth has dropped 50 billion since trump took office and he started working