In this country, the real power is Congress, and we all know it.
To that point, when Congress passes and allocates funds or freezes them, they must be spent in the prescribed manner or frozen and not used… but that is not happening right now.
Talking Points…
- The Appropriations Clause
- Biden-Harris stepping outside the box
- Analysis
We have this pesky little thing called the Constitution in this country, but Dems don't seem to be paying it very much respect lately. The Appropriations Clause in Article I, Section 9 of the U.S. Constitution outlines precisely how money is to be spent by an administration. Congress is required to dictate the amount of money, when the money is to be spent, and how the money can be spent.
If you recall, this became an issue when Donald Trump was president for holding back aid to Ukraine. Trump stated that he was holding the funding back to ensure the corruption was gone from the country, but as far as the Appropriations Clause was concerned, that was irrelevant. Congress said the money had to be spent, so Trump did not have the authority, even as president, to withhold that money.
Not only does the money have to be spent as Congress dictates, but Congress can also freeze funding for various reasons. For instance, in the example above, Trump could have gone to Congress and asked Congress to freeze the funding pending an investigation, but he did not, and Democrats went off the reservation over it. But to be fair, Trump was the one in violation, even if it was for the right reasons.
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is, more or less, the world's piggy bank. This agency is responsible for doling out billions of taxpayer dollars for various social causes around the world, including the LGBTQ+ movement. USAID announced that it was going to spend $1.5 million in the Caribbean and Latin America on various LGBTQ+ initiatives.
The problem is that a congressional committee had frozen the money, but USAID was going to ignore the freeze and start sending it to various initiatives, which is against the law. The money was part of a $6.5 million Development Fund in 2023.
Now, keep in mind that Democrats used Trump's not respecting appropriations as the backbone to impeach him when he was president. At the time the funding was halted by Trump, a large group of Democrats in the House wrote:
"These allegations are stunning, both in the national security threat they pose and the potential corruption they represent."
Rep. Slotkin (D-N.Y.) also attacked Trump for this on the news shows, stating:
"And, by the way, I mean, people don't remember it, but there's a hot war going on in eastern Ukraine.
"So you start holding back security assistance, that's a real lever to use with people. But the very basic idea of getting foreign help to influence American political process, that is beyond the pale."
Now, I am not so ignorant as to fully compare the two situations, but that is irrelevant to our purposes. The fact of the matter here is that both administrations made moves regarding funding that went against what Congress had ordered, which violates the law. My only question at this point is whether the media will hold Biden just as accountable as it did Trump back in 2019. Or, more likely, will the media brush this under the rug like it does every other scandal by Democrats?
