Is there a self-enforcing budget deal with Trump?
Is there a self-enforcing budget deal with Trump?
In yesterday’s column, Yglesias makes a critical observation: “there is genuinely no point in negotiating a bipartisan appropriation bill if the president is going to ignore its terms. . . . the entire premise of a bipartisan spending deal is precisely that money will be spent on programs the president doesn’t want to spend money on.”
So how can the Democrats agree to a budget deal given that Trump is just refusing to spend money that Congress has appropriated? What can they do to force Trump to live up to his side of a deal?
I imagine people are trying to figure this out, but the only thing I can think of is to fund the government for 2 or 3 months at a time. Even that might not work, since the Democrats would be constantly worried that they would be blamed for triggering a shut down. (I guess you might be able to use a series of short term debt ceiling triggers as well, but that seems dangerous.)
Another possibility is to get some other concessions from the President and his congressional allies – concessions that can be written into law and enforced in court – in exchange for support on the debt ceiling and appropriations (reining in emergency powers, limiting law suits against the press, or by the sitting president against anyone, etc.).
Any other ideas?
Josh Marshall over at TPM has been writing about this for awhile. The only insurance policy Democrats have is to raise the debt ceiling for a month or two at a time.
The Republicans have a majority in each house of congress. While it is always possible to blame the Democrats for anything — “It rained today. Blame the Democrats!” — the Republicans are in control and can do anything they want. If we are going to talk about Democratic members of Congress as a unitary agent, we should be doing the same for the Republicans (sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander).
Democrats should identify wasteful spending going to red states and go on a media blitz about the waste. Force the Republicans hand into cutting this spending. Go ahead and cut education and Medicaid spending going to rural areas of the country. When it starts to hurt the people of these states the constituents may have a change in heart on Trump and Doge. Temporary pain for long term gain.
They’re already starting to squeal: an Alabama senator about research money being cut off to the great University of Alabama at Birmingham and others are suddenly being mistakenly deprived of medicaid benefits for their voters. Karma is starting to appear.
This is not the first time that the Executive has ignored Congress’ budgets…the Pentagon has NEVER passed an audit…but where has the hue and cry about that been? Congress just turned a blind eye and ceded its oversight duties without even a whimper.
@John,
Presidents have cut the Pentagon budget and both parties in Congress ignored it? When was that?
Actually DOD does sometimes underspend its budget, but that doesn’t change the two points I made—that DOD has NEVER passed an audit, and that neither Congress nor the public have showed much concern about DOD being held accountable for its spending.
@John,
I’ll type more slowly this time, since you clearly didn’t understand my questions: Presidents have cut the Pentagon budget and both parties in Congress ignored it? When was that?
Appropriation bills were not always directives to spend all the money.
In former times, mostly before the rise of the military industry complex, before Eisenhower warned about it, appropriation bills were considered limits/ceilings to spending, actual budget ceilings,
Somehow pundits have decided the bills are floors to spending. This is obvious with the pentagon at least since it privatized the military arsenals.
In 1974 the Impoundment Control Act limited the authority of the president/executive to stop spending all the money.
ICA was used to impeach Trump in 2020 for holding $200 million from Kiev on the phone call. ICA says “policy” is no reason to not spend it all.
Which faction wants to be the “spend it all” party?
But the Impoundment Control Act does exist, doesn’t it! Signed by Richard Nixon!
I recall hearing the word “impoundment” in my time in DoD. Never saw any program actually limited by an impoundment.
Once my program director, a colonel was ordered to “spend the money” before it expired some worked over the weekend, we all thought it was a waste.
Apparently colonels cannot impound US money.
@paddy,
Everybody knows that you spend your budget or your budget will get cut next cycle. That’s true in both the public and private sectors.
I did that. What I bought on the last day of the budget cycle was fuel and such consumables that were used routinely.
First day my fuel tanks still had room for more.
As I read this, this is an accounting issue. As a supply chain guru, it is not an accounting issue as much as it is an inventory issue. The military does not account for the ins and outs of its warehouses and storage facilities properly. It is called inventory control. It is also a problem which was and still can be found in most business operations.
One citation which points to the issue found:
Accounting problems led the GAO in 1995 to put DOD financial management on GAO’s list of agencies that are at high-risk of waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement.
Some of the GAO’s findings are astonishing:
The GAO testimony follows a March report by the office of the Defense Department’s Inspector General that concluded that the Pentagon’s books were in such disarray that they couldn’t be audited.Why Can’t the Pentagon Pass An Audit? | Taxpayers for Common Sense
Accountants are score keepers. They report the score of $dollars of inventory. The logistics personnel maintain the inventory.