Can A President Appropriate Funds for a Program?

With regard to Trump’s three memos and one Executive Order.

We did go through this one time before with the ACA and funding for the Risk Corridor Program as I wrote “Risk Corridor, Healthcare Premiums, Companies Leaving the Exchanges, and Republicans.” The GAO said the President can not appropriate funds for funding of programs. Only congress can do so as stated in a letter to then Senator Jeff Sessions. However, a president can transfer funding from one program to another.

“Questioning whether the Risk Corridor payments were being appropriated correctly, the Appropriations Panel forced the HHS to make changes in how they appropriated funds allowing Congress to stop all appropriations. As stated in this letter, the PPACA could no longer appropriate the funds as they were subject to the discretion of Congress. The GAO issued an opinion on the legality of what the HHS was doing with funds.

GAO Letter to Senator Jeff Sessions. September 30, 2014: Discussion; “At issue here is whether appropriations are available to the Secretary of HHS to make the payments specified in section 1342(b)(1). Agencies may incur obligations and make expenditures only as permitted by an appropriation. U.S. Const., art. I, § 9, cl. 7; 31 U.S.C. § 1341(a)(1); B-300192, Nov. 13, 2002, at 5. Appropriations may be provided through annual appropriations acts as well as through permanent legislation. See, e.g., 63 Comp. Gen. 331 (1984). The making of an appropriation must be expressly stated in law. 31 U.S.C. § 1301(d). It is not enough for a statute to simply require an agency to make a payment. B-114808, Aug. 7, 1979. Section 1342, by its terms, did not enact an appropriation to make the payments specified in section 1342(b)(1). In such cases, we next determine whether there are other appropriations available to an agency for this purpose.”

Further down in the GAO letter, the GAO leaves the HHS an out of using other already available appropriations for the Risk Corridor payments to insurance companies. Classifying the payments as “user fees” was another way to retain the authority to spend other appropriations already made by Congress. Otherwise if revenue from the Risk Corridor program fell short, the administration would need approval for addition appropriations from Congress. As it was, the HHS could no longer appropriate funds to make Risk Corridor payments unless the funds were already appropriated by Congress or Congress approved new funds which was not going to happen with a Republican controlled House.”

The transfer of funding from another healthcare program to the PPACA Risk Corridor Program was blocked by the insertion of Section 227 of the 2015 Appropriations Act (dated December 16, 2014) which escaped notice by Congressional Representatives Kingston and Upton. In the 2015 Appropriations Act (Cromnibus), the sentence inserted said no “other” funds in this bill could be used for Risk Corridor payments. See: Risk Corridor

What is reprehensible is the total alliance by Senator “Moscow” Mitch McConnell and his sycophants’ who have locked stepped in accordance with a psychotic president in the White House blocking any economic help to the citizens of this nation during a catastrophic event. It remains to be seen if the Senate comes back to reality to stop this president. And McConnell? McConnell shall definitely be remembered in history as something.