Thread by @andclev

I'm seeing a lot of people upset that the White House is once again going to transfer $7.2 billion of DOD funds to pay for the border wall. (first reported by the WaPo).

Trump planning to divert additional $7.2 billion in Pentagon funds for border wall washingtonpost.com/immigration/tr…

Why didn't Congress stop this?!? people are demanding. Well, it tried, and it couldn't muster the enough votes. Here's a quick thread tracing some of the history of how the administration is spending money for purposes other than Congress spelled out, and how Congress responded.

First, as this @lawfareblog piece explains, the declaration of a national emergency allows the WH to invoke 10 U.S.C. § 2808(a) as justification to repurpose DOD funds. So the first way to stop this from happening would be for Congress to vote to terminate the national emergency.

Congress did this, twice. Bipartisan majorities in both chambers voted to terminate, but POTUS vetoed them both times, and there weren't enough votes to override. So the option to use DOD funds remains open.

rollcall.com/news/congress/…

Why not just zero out the accounts that the WH is raiding? Well, each year Congress gives DOD the ability to move funds around between accounts. This is needed when you are trying to spend $700+ billion wisely. Otherwise, you get one shot a year to make good spending decisions.

Traditionally, DOD has asked for approval from the chairs and RMs of SASC, HASC, SAC-D & HAC-D before moving big chunks of money around. But this was an understanding, not a legal requirement, because of the 1983 SCOTUS Chadha decision.

rollcall.com/news/congress/…

Once the WH decided to no longer honor this practice, it was up to Congress to strip DOD of its transfer authority. This was talked about a lot as the #FY20NDAA was worked on. BUT, in the midst of all this, leadership struck a budget deal with the WH in July. (PL 116-37)

Part of this deal was, according to a two-page handshake agmt: "Current transfer funding levels and authorities shall be maintained, and any modifications must be agreed to on a bipartisan basis by the four leaders with the approval of the President." So much for that option.

The remaining way to stop it relies on federal courts to rule that the White House is illegally subverting Congress' power of the purse. Thus far, that hasn't happened either.

rollcall.com/news/congress/…

So, military construction projects are once again being shelved to pay for the wall. While members HATE seeing projects in their state/district stopped for any reason, it's also worth noting that the pain isn't equally distributed in Red/Blue areas.

rollcall.com/news/policy/ch…

As the above story noted, 16 Dem districts had $685M halted, while 20 GOP districts had $350M. Similarly, $580M in 8 states with 2 Dem sens vs. $445M in 11 states with 2 GOP sens. More $$$ in Dem regions, with the pain spread out more broadly in GOP areas.

Once the Pentagon identifies which MilCon projects are being halted to come up with $3.7B, it's a safe bet that most of the $$ will come from Dem-controlled areas. And swing states that POTUS needs to carry to win re-election will probably avoid the worst of it.

It's not surprising that the White House is moving forward with this method to pay for a major campaign issue. It worked before, and Congress has thus far not mustered the collective will to stop it.

Thank you for coming to my TED-talk.