Musk Usurps the Power of the Purse from Congress but Republicans Can Apply for Relief from Funding Cuts
The Constitution gives Congress the “power of the purse,” the ability to set government spending. But Donald Trump set DOGE loose to cut off funding to programs and entire agencies. Congress is now reduced to begging for permission to have some say in the process.
CNN describes the scene:
Republicans pushed Elon Musk on Wednesday in a pair of private meetings to move his efforts to slash federal spending and the federal workforce through Congress, as lawmakers vie for a seat at the table in the sweeping effort to overhaul government. …
The meetings come as multiple GOP lawmakers have been making the case to their leadership behind the scenes for weeks that Musk needs to consult more with Congress about the programs DOGE is working to eliminate and the scope of the cuts. …
To help address that, Musk gave out his cell phone number during the closed-door meeting to GOP senators and told them he wants to work more closely with them, according to a person familiar with the matter. …
“What we got to do as Republicans is capture their work product, put it in a bill and vote on it,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina and chair of the Senate Budget Committee, said.
Musk is giving his phone number to GOP lawmakers so that they can ask him to restore funding to their districts—and naturally Republicans can get “Elon relief,” but not Democrats. The executive branch is supposed to have to beg Congress for money—but now it’s the other way around.
The Executive Watch is a project of the Institute for the Study of Modern Authoritarianism, and its flagship publication The UnPopulist, to track in an ongoing way the abuses of the power of the American presidency. It sorts these abuses into five categories: Personal Grift, Political Corruption, Presidential Retribution, Power Consolidation, and Policy Illegality. Click the category of interest to get an overview of all the abuses under it.
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