Trump’s shutdown spending spree should scare us all
The federal government may still be paralyzed, but that hasn’t stopped President Donald Trump from promising controls of a breathtaking scale.
How can Trump continue to fund his favorite programs even though federal funds ran out about three weeks ago? It turns out that Trump often relies on creative accounting and a slush fund that legal experts say could violate federal law.
With the federal shutdown expected to drag on, Trump has tasked Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought with finding ways to move money around without congressional approval– which is often asked – and Vought was apparently happy to do it.
“OMB is doing everything it can to batten down the hatches and overcome Democratic intransigence,” OMB wrote in a statement. Article from October 14 on X. “Pay the troops, pay the law enforcement, keep it going [reductions in force]and wait.
Trump made good on Vought’s threat last Wednesday, when he signed an order authorizing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to pay the nation’s troops using funds that Hegseth said “are provided for purposes that have a reasonable and logical relationship to the pay and allowances of military personnel, consistent with applicable law.”
But federal policy experts at the nonpartisan group Taxpayers use common sense say such a move likely violates the Anti-Deficiency Act of 1888, which “prevents the government from spending money it does not have.”
This hardly worries Trump, who knows that unpaid troops will quickly lose patience with his destructive shutdown antics.
As Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern point out, Trump’s attempt to transform himself into a one-man Congress is a power grab. unprecedented in American history– and clearly in violation of the enumerated powers of Congress.
In fact, even Trump’s decision to pay for troops was serious enough that some Republican senators complained that the White House I wasn’t honest with them on his legal reasoning. Shocking!
“We’ve been given two different explanations,” said Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, regarding paying troops during the shutdown. “The first is that these are unobligated balances. The first is that they come from certain research and technology programs. But we don’t have details. We’ve asked for details.”
But Trump’s plan for his so-called slush fund goes well beyond simply repurposing money already appropriated by Congress.
Last month he promised to struggling American farmers with a federal aid program, saying he would finance it with tariff revenues – yes, the very tariffs that are causing these farmers so much suffering. But Congress would have to authorize the move, and it hasn’t even officially debated it yet.
As with many things Trumpian, the issue is not necessarily who will benefit from these financial moves. For example, the administration has declared its intention to use tariff revenues maintaining food assistance for pregnant women, mothers and young children – a very worthy endeavor. Rather, the problem is that Trump is pushing the limits of the extraordinary new powers he has, and this ploy can – and likely will – be used to further his own interests in the future.
It’s easy to imagine Trump raising tariffs simply to pad a war chest that he oversees alone, free from congressional oversight and used solely to advance his personal goals. 10 billion dollars to ICE for the purchase of military weapons? Do. No goal is too self-serving or shady in a system where Trump controls the purse strings of a parallel government.
Democrats and government watchdogs are pinning their hopes on federal courts to enforce the law, but that could be wishful thinking in a federal court system. chock full of Trump loyalists.
Of course, Congress could fight back, even going so far as to pass new laws explicitly criminalizing Trump’s creative accounting, but that would require a Congress willing to protect its own constitutional prerogatives. And that’s unlikely as long as MAGA-aligned Republicans control both chambers.
Trump’s latest federal shutdown has given him a new testing ground for the unconstitutional power grabs that will define his second term. His administration has made clear that it intends to move forward unless Congress or the courts prevent it.
