Can the US congress appropriate money for an administrative function and not have it go through the executive branch?
For example, could congress appropriate a foreign aid expenditure for a county, say the Ukraine, and not involve the executive branch? Essentially pass a law that sets up an account at the Federal Reserve and put in money, then have the money transferred directly to the recipient? I understand this would be a terrible idea. Giving a large amount of money to a corrupt country like Ukraine with not supervision or monitoring, but legally could they do that? Would the courts hold that the appropriation is within the congresses power of the purse? I understand that congress would normally just attach specific instructions to the appropriation to make sure the money gets spent according to the law. But by now we have seen multiple times where the administration simply doesn’t follow the law, certainly not the intent of the law. I wouldn’t trust Trump to follow the law if congress wrote a requirement. Could the congress bypass the administration in this way?
I doubt it would stand in court. The appropriations clause in the Constitution (Article I, Section 9, Clause 7) whch is the basis for Congress’ power of the purse speaks of money being “drawn from the Treasury”, which implies involvement of the Treasury (a department of the executive) to spend the funds which Congress has appropriated. Also, the budget is itself a piece of legislation, and so the spending of the funds appropriated in it would seem to be a case of executing a law, which is, of course, a function of the executive.
Congress can appropriate money to itself, or to the judicial branch, and does so every year. But first some boring background:
There’s a perception that an appropriation is worth a certain amount of money, as though an appropriation is akin to a briefcase full of cash dedicated to a particular purpose. That’s not the right way to think about it. An appropriation is the legal authority for someone to make agreements that result in money being taken out of the treasury. So to use another analogy, an appropriation is empowering someone to draft a contract up to a certain value, which will later be satisfied with a payment of cash/check/wire transfer/whatever from the treasury.
So with that in mind, it really wouldn’t make sense to give Ukraine the legal authority to draw from the U.S. treasury directly. You’d need an official in the U.S. government to administer the process of making the legally binding agreement between the U.S. and Ukraine that will then be satisfied by the moneys being delivered to Ukraine.
My guess is that courts would probably see an appropriation made directly to another entity outside the U.S. government as an end-run around the Article II, section 1 powers of the President and the executive branch, in that they hold the executive power – executive in the sense of “we are the ones who actually make things happen by carrying out the law” – but I readily admit that is speculation. Well-informed speculation, but still speculation.
Let’s keep the political commentary out of GQ, please. There are other forums where you can make statements like this and express your trust (or lack thereof) regarding the current administration.
To anyone responding, since this is in GQ, please focus on the factual portion of the OP, namely whether or not Congress has the legal authority to do something like this and what checks and balances may or may not be in place.
Oops! you are absolutely right. I thought I was still over in humble opinion. GQ is a better place for my actual question-without my impolite personal comments. I should not have said that-even in IMHO. I will be more careful in the future.