1) There are rattlings that the Trump Administration may try to take action in the coming days to address the coronavirus crisis via executive action if there’s a failure to secure a robust legislative response on Capitol Hill.
2) The best model to study for this suggestion is what the Trump Administration did – somewhat dubiously – when it came to shifting money around for the border wall.
3) Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution is clear as to which branch controls the purse strings. It reads “No money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.” That means Congress decides what, if any money, is allocated for anything.
4) That’s why the border wall decision was so controversial, and, frankly, extra-Constitutional.
5) In the case of the border wall, Congress appropriated about $10 billion for three military and Homeland Security accounts. Without approval from Congress, the administration did an end-run. It diverted that $10 billion for the wall.
6) The Constitutionality of this practice is questionable at best. If there’s no deal, it’s possible the Trump Administration could again try to slide money from one account to another to deal with school safety, unemployment benefits, et al.
7) But, moving $10 billion for the wall is one thing. That’s not a lot of money in the grand design of things. The needs to respond to coronavirus are in the hundreds of billions if not trillions. Shifting that much money is much, much harder.
8) And, even if the administration did do it, that means that tens of billions of dollars are suddenly unavailable for project A because. That money is now going to project B.
9) Also, the Trump Administration cannot just magically pull a couple of hundred billion dollars…or a trillion, or whatever the dollar figure may be, out of the ether.
10) Per the Constitution, Congress must approve that money. The administration cannot just wave a magic wand, exclaim “abracadabra,” and the money appears.
11) Regardless, Fox has been told that this threat by the administration is a negotiating tactic. Congress didn’t like getting rolled by the administration on the border wall. So, this tactic intensifies the negotiations.
