Politico has looked into Trump and Vought’s saying they WILL pay whon they want during the Shutdown by moving money and usung Tariff income…
Congress IS supposted to specify where US Government revenue goes….
Moving the money wherever is kinda like stealing food from babies mouthes….
The question would be?
Will a Republican led Congress do a damn thing?….
President Donald Trump and his top officials have repeatedly promised to tap the billions of dollars collected from their historic tariff hikes for key priorities like troop pay, nutrition assistance and farmer bailouts. That’s not how it works.
The administration has brought in about $200 billion in tariff revenue so far this year, cash the president and members of his Cabinet have boasted is a sign their tariff hikes are succeeding — and have suggested they can now use at their discretion.
“We’re going to take some of that tariff money that we made, we’re going to give it to our farmers, who are, for a little while, going to be hurt until the tariffs kick in to their benefit,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office last month. “So we’re going to make sure that our farmers are in great shape, because we’re taking in a lot of money.”
The reality, however, is that the White House has extremely limited power to direct those funds without congressional direction, since revenue generated by the federal government flows into the Treasury and Congress decides how that money gets doled out. While the president has tested the bounds of the executive branch’s power over spending by freezing, shifting and canceling billions of dollars in other cash Congress has already approved, administration officials have thus far struggled to find ways to use the tariff revenue as Trump and his officials have promised.
“The Constitution clearly provides the legislative branch the authority to levy tariffs and taxes, and to spend and appropriate money,” said Sen. Jerry Moran, a Kansas Republican and a top appropriator. “So while I’m certainly interested in the White House and President Trump’s suggestions, there’s the necessity of Congress acting to implement that suggestion, if that’s the conclusion of Congress.”
Contrary to the claims of Trump, Vice President JD Vance and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt in recent weeks, the president’s top trade official has acknowledged the conundrum….
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“The basic core thing is tariff money is not different from other sorts of money,” said Ed Gresser, a former assistant U.S. Trade Representative who now serves as a director at the Progressive Policy Institute. “And relative to these other sorts of money, it’s small. It’s costly to the public, but it hasn’t changed the government’s fiscal position at all….
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