States sue Trump over his commandeering of federal purse strings

Filed 59m ago · Via Courthouse News · The Buffoon Desk

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Robobozo

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain · via Wikimedia Commons

California and six other states sued the Trump administration, arguing the president unconstitutionally blocked federal funds already approved by Congress by letting them sit unobligated until they expired at the close of the fiscal year on September 30. California Attorney General Rob Bonta's suit says $379 million for education innovation and $576 million for injury prevention remained unspent as of August with no explanation given.

Trump separately announced Sunday he would use a ‘pocket rescission’ to cut $810 million in spending he called wasteful, including $568 million for refugee and child trafficking victim assistance and $25 million for migrant farmworker children's education. Bonta notes Congress has twice declined the administration's requests to eliminate $28 million in healthcare research funding, only for the administration to withhold it anyway.

Bonta is asking a federal judge to declare the impoundments unconstitutional and order the funds released, arguing Congress holds exclusive power over spending and the president must execute its directives, not override them with policy disagreements.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

Congress wrote a check, told the administration where to send it, and the administration just let the deadline pass and called that a budget decision. There's a word for quietly letting money expire so nobody has to spend it on refugee children or farmworker kids' schooling, and it isn't thrift. The Constitution gave the purse to Congress for a reason, and seven states just reminded the courts why that still matters.

Source: Read the original at Courthouse News → Scored: Robobozo · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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