Comment by cryptonector | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cryptonector | Hacker News Reader

In the end there is no way the courts could force the Executive to deficit spend. I'm not sure I want to find out which way that will go right now -and I make no predictions whatsoever-, but it has got to be the case that in extremis the Executive can simply cut spending until the deficit is reduced to zero. Imagine that the deficit was 100% and inflation were raging at Argentine levels like 100% a year: an American Milei (which Trump is not far from being) would absolutely get away with cutting spending to the bone and telling the Congress and the courts to go pound sand.

My advice is to not push too hard on this at this time. The only real check on Trump's power right now will be the House impeaching, and that can only happen if House Republicans get angry with him, and it should be clear that cutting spending is making them angry before the courts start goading Trump into doing something that might trigger impeachment. I don't think people realize that the right-ward movement in the electorate is accelerating since the election, and doing things that further accelerate that before the midterms isn't going to help Trump's opponents in either party.

By that theory, if the President can choose not to spend money budgeted and authorized by Congress, they have an effective veto power over any legislation. Don't like trains? Defund Amtrak. Don't like highways? Defund DOT. Peace lover? Zero out the DoD.

This is why the Supreme Court is here - to adjudicate what is legal and to reconcile different responsibilities and theories. Regardless of what is "best for the country", the law says one thing and the President is doing something else.

First of all see the "impoundment power" and the Impoundment Control Act. It's not clear what the Constitution says on this matter, nor have the courts pronounced themselves on this. In the 90s the SCOTUS said that Congress could not give the President an explicit line item veto power, but impoundment is not the same thing.

Second, in extremis, it has got to be the case that the President can refuse to spend allocated moneys. The President must never be able to spend unallocated funds, but Congress can't make money appear out of nowhere. In extremis the dollar could stop being the world's reserve currency, and in extremis the U.S. could end up in a situation like Argentina's. Obviously there has to be a limit. I'm not saying we're there. But I am saying that the courts should thing ten times before saying that the President cannot impound spending.

Besides, consider all the constitutional provisions that we no longer adhere to. For example the Constitution says that Congress must set the value of the currency, but Congress does no such thing. For another the Constitution says that all debt issuance must be approved by Congress, but Congress merely sets a ceiling for debt issuance rather than approving each issuance. Some things -not many- the Constitution got wrong in ways that nobody even bothered to amend nor ever will.

In extremis, if it's the President that decides which parts of Congress to implement, then they have broken the separation of powers. Either the Supreme Court should explicitly rule that the President can weigh e.g. macroeconomic impacts when choosing not to implement laws Congress passed, or Congress should act to avoid those economic consequences.

Aside from today's specific issue, I'm very concerned about the decades-long trend of power being ceded by Congress to the Executive and Judicial branches. This is would be another big jerk in that direction.

"Current law thus often catches the executive branch in a vise: Presidents can neither spend money without an appropriation nor refuse to spend funds once Congress has provided them. From both directions, Congress has reinforced its “power of the purse”—its authority to control the use of federal money." - https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/a-primer-on-the-impound...

No, the extreme example here is about DEFICIT spending. If Congress passed a balanced budget then the President could not decide not to spend some of it.

Reality has a stronger vise than the ICA or the SCOTUS.

Aside from any given policy, the President deciding that the presidency gets a new power is a disturbing precedent.

FDR joins the chat

The question here seems to be whether the president can temporarily not spend money. Congress has the ultimate power of spending. When the spending is grants, does the executive have the ability to change where the money goes? In other words once the tap is open, it can’t ever close?

> My advice is to not push too hard on this at this time. The only real check on Trump's power right now will be the House impeaching, and that can only happen if House Republicans get angry with him, and it should be clear that cutting spending is making them angry before the courts start goading Trump into doing something that might trigger impeachment. I don't think people realize that the right-ward movement in the electorate is accelerating since the election, and doing things that further accelerate that before the midterms isn't going to help Trump's opponents in either party.

There isn't going to be another election in this country.

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