Trump & Co. Ignore’s Congressional Budget ‘s allocations ….
Moves Federal money around like he owns it…
The Federal Judges tell him NO….
He does it anyways….
The Republican lawmakers JUST sit on their hands…..
But now, those ties are being tested like never before: The White House was aggressively encroaching on Congress’s power of the purse even before it began using the ongoing government shutdown as justification for rolling back billions more in spending.
Democratic, and many Republican, appropriators are angry at Trump’s White House for unilaterally canceling contracts, abruptly freezing billions of dollars in congressionally sanctioned funding and trying out a “pocket rescission” technique to permanently withhold $5 billion in foreign aid without congressional input.
Republicans, who control both chambers of Congress, have largely swallowed those concerns out of fealty to President Donald Trump. In the process, they have allowed their power to erode.
“The administration is taking all the reins and Congress doesn’t really have a say on anything,” said Fred Upton, the Republican from Michigan who chaired the House Energy and Commerce Committee until 2017. “No one’s putting their hand up to say ‘stop.’ It’s just happening.”
The implications of that erosion are significant and long-lasting, say scholars of the U.S. political system and congressional observers. They could permanently tip the balance of power away from Congress and toward the executive branch on an issue — how the U.S. spends its money — that has traditionally been the unquestioned purview of the legislative branch.
“It is an absolute threat to Congress’s power of the purse,” said Robert Shea, a Republican who served in senior political roles at the White House budget office. “I come from a time when the administration feared the repercussions of crossing the appropriators. That time has passed.”
The Trump administration — led by budget chief Russell Vought — is intentionally pushing the boundaries of executive authority on government spending. Vought wants the Supreme Court to hear challenges to the 1974 Impoundment Control Act, which puts strict limits on the ability of the executive branch to withhold money that has been approved by Congress. Vought has said he believes that law is unconstitutional.
“If Congress lays down its arms on its most fundamental authority, I don’t know what leg they’re going to have to stand on going forward,” said Brendan Buck, who was an aide to former GOP House speakers Paul D. Ryan and John A. Boehner. “Presidents will take advantage of this opportunity, knowing this is one more area where Congress has weakened itself and the administration can just run over them.”….
Amusingly, after all these years, you still pretend that Congressional Republicans exercise some degree of independence from the Owner of their party.
Oh occasionally a couple will innocuously announce some criticism , usually very mild,of some lie that dear leader pronounces but that is rare.
The Republican Party today is organized pretty much like the old Soviet Communist Party with the accoutrements of a legitimate political organization but,in realty, nothing more than window dressing for antics of the authoritarian leader.
Good example in the Russian’s
GREENE IS struggling to shake her fellow party members to ‘break free from the chains’
They are pissed at her for doing so….
I SILL feel that a LOT of GOPer’s in Congress…
Especially the House
Have tough decisions to make and may sigh up to go Greene!’s eWAY