• Home
  • Opinion
  • Quizzes
  • Redistricting
  • Sections
  • About Us
  • Voting
  • Independent Voter News
  • Campaign Finance
  • Civic Ed
  • Directory
  • Election Dissection
  • Events
  • Fact Check
  • Glossary
  • News
  • Analysis
  • Subscriptions
  • Log in
Leveraging Our Differences
  • news & opinion
    • Big Picture
      • Civic Ed
      • Ethics
      • Leadership
      • Leveraging big ideas
      • Media
    • Business & Democracy
      • Corporate Responsibility
      • Impact Investment
      • Innovation & Incubation
      • Small Businesses
      • Stakeholder Capitalism
    • Elections
      • Campaign Finance
      • Independent Voter News
      • Redistricting
      • Voting
    • Government
      • Balance of Power
      • Budgeting
      • Congress
      • Judicial
      • Local
      • State
      • White House
    • Justice
      • Accountability
      • Anti-corruption
      • Budget equity
    • Columns
      • Beyond Right and Left
      • Civic Soul
      • Congress at a Crossroads
      • Cross-Partisan Visions
      • Democracy Pie
      • Our Freedom
  • Pop Culture
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
  • events
  • About
      • Mission
      • Advisory Board
      • Staff
      • Contact Us
Sign Up
  1. Home>
  2. Congress>
  3. protecting our democracy act>

Strengthening the system means putting power over the purse where it belongs

Andrew Lautz
Jonathan Bydlak
March 19, 2021
Barack Obama

President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans went to the Supreme Court in a fight over control of spending related to the Affordable Care Act.

Johnny Louis/FilmMagic

Lautz is a government affairs manager at the National Taxpayers Union, which advocates for fiscally conservative policies. Bydlak directs the budget policy work of the R Street Institute, a center-right think tank.

This is part of a series advocating for parts of legislation soon to be proposed in the House, dubbed the Protecting Our Democracy Act, designed to improve democracy's checks and balances by curbing presidential power.


As debate rages inside and outside of Washington over the health of American democracy, it's past time for Congress to address one of the most significant problems in our system of checks and balances: presidential administrations usurping the power of the purse, and lawmakers all too happy to let them.

The Founders were clear in their intent for this separation of power between the branches. James Madison, who would serve in the House and as secretary of state before becoming the fourth president, wrote in "Federalist No. 58" that the House "cannot only refuse, but they alone can propose, the supplies requisite for the support of government," adding: "This power over the purse may, in fact, be regarded as the most complete and effectual weapon with which any constitution can arm the immediate representatives of the people, for obtaining a redress of every grievance, and for carrying into effect every just and salutary measure."

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

The Constitution reflects Madison's perspective. Article 1, Section 7 states that "All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives," and Section 8 asserts that "Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States." Section 9 affirms that "No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law." It is hard to imagine how the Framers could have been clearer.

Over recent decades, however, Congress has increasingly abdicated these powers to a growing executive branch. The problem is illustrated by numerous and prominent abuses of congressionally appropriated funds by presidents of both parties.

Last year, Donald Trump reprogrammed $3.8 billion worth of Defense Department money for a border wall that Congress refused to fund at his desired levels — a move a federal appeals court partially rolled back last summer. And Trump's first impeachment trial was focused in part on a similar withholding of funds for aid to Ukraine.

When Barack Obama was president, a lawsuit over the Affordable Care Act's risk-based payments to health insurers became a major purse strings fight between him and a Congress controlled by Republicans. The case made it all the way to the Supreme Court last year.

Arguments about the congressional power of the purse were often featured in the debate over the military operations of George W. Bush's administration, with some of the toughest pushback from Joe Biden when he was chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Such fights threaten the integrity and transparent flow of taxpayer dollars, and lawsuits and inter-branch warfare cost further time, money and effort. But there are solutions: Title V of the Protecting our Democracy Act would reassert the congressional power of the purse and recalibrate the constitutional imbalance over who controls taxpayer dollars.

The legislation would require the executive branch and its powerful Office of Management and Budget to release congressionally appropriated funds with enough time for agencies to actually obligate and spend the money before their authority to do so expires. It would also require OMB to set up a public website for reporting all its decisions on when and how fast agencies may spend funds that are released to them. This process, called apportionment, now has little transparency — and that makes it nearly impossible for either lawmakers or non-governmental watchdogs to safeguard taxpayer dollars.

The bill would require presidents to report to Congress on outstanding balances of taxpayer funds that expired or were cancelled in the past few years — a direct analog to the Constitution's stipulation that "a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time." More practically, the provision would give lawmakers important insights into how money moves (or doesn't move) through a complex and often byzantine executive branch system.

None of these reforms alone would fix the existing power imbalance between Congress and the president. Lawmakers also should reform the National Emergencies Act, enhance the roles of federal inspectors general in reporting abuse and misuse of taxpayer funds, and enact more robust legal protections for whistleblowers in government — particularly those in the executive branch.

The Protecting Our Democracy Act, while far from a perfect piece of legislation, would make important strides in all of these areas.

Ensuring proper oversight of taxpayer dollars requires a strong Congress. Only the legislature can get access to — and constitutionally demand — information from the executive, but sadly the House and Senate have found it easier to abdicate this responsibility. Stronger congressional control over the nation's purse strings would ensure that all American citizens could effectively petition their representatives in government over the use of taxpayer dollars. It would enable elected members of Congress, and non-governmental oversight groups, to exercise greater input over how the executive branch spends our money.

And ultimately, it would strengthen a democracy that sorely needs to build some muscle.

From Your Site Articles
  • Congress needs to reassert its authority - The Fulcrum ›
  • President Trump, Congress and broken standards of democracy ... ›
  • Time for a cross-partisan push to prevent abuses of power - The ... ›
  • WHO budget is latest example of lost congressional power - The ... ›
  • Stanford contest seeks ideas for strengthening democracy - The Fulcrum ›
  • The next attack on the Affordable Care Act may cost you free preventive health care - The Fulcrum ›
  • Making Madisonian government 'work' is a Sisyphean task - The Fulcrum ›
  • Making Madisonian government 'work' is a Sisyphean task - The Fulcrum ›
  • Making Madisonian government 'work' is a Sisyphean task - The Fulcrum ›
  • Podcast: Past, present, future - The Fulcrum ›
Related Articles Around the Web
  • Power of the purse - Wikipedia ›
  • Congressional Power of the Purse Act | House Budget Committee ... ›
  • Power of the Purse | US House of Representatives: History, Art ... ›
protecting our democracy act

Want to write
for The Fulcrum?

If you have something to say about ways to protect or repair our American democracy, we want to hear from you.

Submit
Get some Leverage Sign up for The Fulcrum Newsletter
Confirm that you are not a bot.
×
Follow

Support Democracy Journalism; Join The Fulcrum

The Fulcrum daily platform is where insiders and outsiders to politics are informed, meet, talk, and act to repair our democracy and make it live and work in our everyday lives. Now more than ever our democracy needs a trustworthy outlet

Contribute
Contributors

To advance racial equity, policy makers must move away from the "Black and Brown" discourse

Julio A. Alicea

Policymakers must address worsening civil unrest post Roe

Sarah K. Burke

Video: How to salvage U.S. democracy from the "tyranny of the minority"

Our Staff

What "Progress" should look like, and what we get wrong

Damien De Pyle

The long kiss goodnight: Nancy Pelosi and the protracted decay of public office

Kevin Frazier

Demanding corporate responsibility for food system challenges

C.Anne Long
latest News

Pin the blame on the other party

Rachel Bonar
12h

Dark magic: Drug companies and the art of deception

Robert Pearl
12h

Sit down with Deepa Iyer of Building Movement Project

Debilyn Molineaux
12h

Societal disruption: Artificial intelligence

Kevin Frazier
25 September

The “United” States aren’t any more

James C. Nelson
25 September

Video: The dire roles Congress, White House play in addressing migrants

Our Staff
25 September
Videos
Video: Expert baffled by Trump contradicting legal team

Video: Expert baffled by Trump contradicting legal team

Our Staff
Video: Do white leaders hinder black aspirations?

Video: Do white leaders hinder black aspirations?

Our Staff
Video: How to prepare for student loan repayments returning

Video: How to prepare for student loan repayments returning

Our Staff
Video: The history of Labor Day

Video: The history of Labor Day

Our Staff
Video: Trump allies begin to flip as prosecutions move forward

Video: Trump allies begin to flip as prosecutions move forward

Our Staff
Video Rewind: Trans-partisan practices and the "superpower of respect"

Video Rewind: Trans-partisan practices and the "superpower of respect"

Our Staff
Podcasts

Podcast: All politics is local

Our Staff
22 September

Podcast: How states hold fair elections

Our Staff
14 September

Podcast: The MAGA Bubble, Bidenonmics and Playing the Victim

Debilyn Molineaux
David Riordan
12 September

Podcast: Defending the founding principles of our government

Our Staff
07 September
Recommended
Pin the blame on the other party

Pin the blame on the other party

Government
Dark magic: Drug companies and the art of deception

Dark magic: Drug companies and the art of deception

Big Picture
Sit down with Deepa Iyer of Building Movement Project

Sit down with Deepa Iyer of Building Movement Project

Big Picture
Societal disruption: Artificial intelligence

Societal disruption: Artificial intelligence

Contributors
The “United” States aren’t any more

The “United” States aren’t any more

Big Picture
Video: The dire roles Congress, White House play in addressing migrants

Video: The dire roles Congress, White House play in addressing migrants

Big Picture