u/Major-Corner-640

Congress Has Lost the Power of the Purse
▲ 4.7k r/scotus+1 crossposts

Congress Has Lost the Power of the Purse

While Trump's slush fund scam rightfully has us reeling at his ability to openly steal $1.8 billion of our money, there's a bigger implication here that nobody seems to be seeing.

Trump has now completely usurped the power of the purse. He has a parallel means to fund the government with no limits, oversight, or controls. This was just the proof-of-concept.

If he can sue the government for $10 billion of imaginary wrongs, why not $100 trillion? DOJ then settles for $10 trillion or so, funding any personal or government priority Trump wants. He can do this every year. It's the real-life infinite money glitch.

Existing law appears to permit this, so Congress would have to pass a new law to constrain it. Said law would be vetoed by POTUS, so they'd need 67 senators. GOP gets 34 senators just by getting out of bed in the morning, so this is effectively a permanent rule unless a Democrat becomes POTUS, in which we can expect SCOTUS to invent some new law in accordance with GOP political interests.

If this persists long enough, I predict that it will become the new way of setting budgets, with all those messy Congressional appropriations just withering away. Welcome to the Dual State!

thehill.com
u/Major-Corner-640 — 12 hours ago