Monday, February 24, 2025
A President of the United States of America
So what is the Trump administration supposed to do when it finds that an executive branch agency is wasting money, engaging in corrupt practices, or spending resources in ways that actually undercut the administration’s policies? According to the Democrats, nothing. Once Congress has appropriated money to USAID or any other agency, the Trump administration has no option but to spend it—and, apparently, to spend it in the ways that the unelected bureaucrats in that agency choose.
Of course, if you look at the appropriations bill that covers USAID, you will see no reference to transgender operas. Nor will the phrase “transgender comic book” appear. USAID’s funding is allocated in broad categories that sound noble. But where the money actually goes, Congress has no idea.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has talked about this. When he was in the Senate he tried to exercise oversight over USAID. Employees of that agency would appear before his committee, and he would ask them how money in a particular category was being spent. Where is this money going? Who is being paid, and for what purpose? And the USAID witnesses would refuse to answer. They didn’t have to say; they were independent.
That is a constitutional absurdity and a policy outrage. And it also is one of the reasons why Democrats love the fourth branch. They use vague appropriations to enable spending for which they would never want to take responsibility. Can you imagine a Democratic House member trying to explain to constituents why he voted to fund a transgender opera in a foreign country? But no such explanation ever becomes necessary. The fourth branch is shrouded in secrecy and “independence.”
If you take seriously the fact that the President runs the executive branch—indisputable, under Article II—then, if the president learns that money is being wasted, that an agency has gone rogue, that its officials are pursuing policies that contradict those of the administration they serve—the president’s duty is to stop it. Stop the spending, fire the employees, neuter the rogue agency.
Of course it is true, as the Democrats say, that the President doesn’t have the power to abolish an agency that Congress has created. Thus, for example, President Trump cannot, by executive order, abolish the Department of Education. But he can run the Department of Education, and if that department is spending resources in ways that are wasteful or that contradict his administration’s policy goals, he can stop or redirect that spending.
The Democratic Party press has the current crisis exactly backward. The fact that President Trump is asserting control over the federal employees who work for him is a natural, if long-overdue, return to constitutional norms. The idea that the executive branch is somehow beyond the control of the president is the real crisis, one that has been long in the making. Ultimately, the Supreme Court will sort out the respective powers of Congress and the President with regard to the agencies that are established by Congress. In the meantime, President Trump needs to continue to assert his constitutional responsibility for the executive branch.
More here.
