It's just that as far as I can recall no one has ever really tried to spend less in the government.
EDIT: I was mistaken, please look up Impoundment of appropriated funds
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impoundment_of_appropriated_fu...
https://www.npr.org/2025/02/02/nx-s1-5281438/understanding-t...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impoundment_of_appropriated_fu...
No, they cannot. Trump was impeached during his first term over this very issue. Congress had appropriated funding for the Ukraine, Trump didn't want to provide it without obtaining concessions from Zelenski. Just like Trump doesn't want to provide California any FEMA money for the LA fires without concessions. Trump has been through this before, he knows it's illegal, but he doesn't care. It's kinda funny that people expect a felon to care about the law.
When asked about the news on Oct. 5 that new border wall construction would indeed commence under his administration, Biden told reporters: “The border wall — the money was appropriated for the border wall. I tried to get to them to reappropriate it, to redirect that money. They didn’t. They wouldn’t. And in the meantime, there’s nothing under the law other than they have to use the money for what it was appropriated. I can’t stop that.”
Trump intended to build the wall with no environmental assessments or permits and congress wrote in a waiver since the border was “an emergency” but Biden chose to rescind the emergency declaration and follow the long-established federal construction process instead of using the waivers which does indeed slow things down.
That’s nothing like what is happening with Musk “deleting” entire departments or unilaterally stopping funding because he doesn’t like the phrasing of the grants.
https://www.factcheck.org/2023/10/bidens-border-wall-explain...
Biden tried to get congress to re-appropriate the funds. They wouldn't, so he spent it as he was obligated.
I'll just be in good faith and believe you wholesale. Yes, that is one way to fight the spending. Make the government argue until a deadline is hit and then they either shut down or compromise. Happens much too often.
But that's the point: the budget wasn't made yet. Trump wants to argue over funding that was already in place. If he wanted this chaos legally, he'd have been stalling out the March funding next quarter. But once it's finalized, it's finalized and many challenges over the centuries were shot down.