11 ms·

It's not that simple. Congress can't specify every pen and pencil expense, so they allocate large buckets. The executive can decide how each bucket is spent. L

It's not that simple. Congress can't specify every pen and pencil expense, so they allocate large buckets. The executive can decide how each bucket is spent. Like when your mom gives you $20 to go to the movies. She doesn't care what movie you see, but she'd be mad if you skipped the movies and spent it on weed.

nessbot 2y ago
And what they are doing now is "skipping the movies and spending it on weed." Shutting down USAID, even if eventually Rubio came in and rolled that back is what you just described. That was an office created by congress.
- b112 2y ago
  No, what they're doing is skipping the movie, saving up money, hiring a lawyer, so mom loses the right to say "don't spend it on weed".
  - abracadaniel 2y ago
    A better analogy might be that mom bought groceries for the starving family down the road with a check and you cancelled the check, stole the checkbook, and changed the bank account password.
    - encoderer 2y ago
      But clearly: did not spend it. Did not misappropriate it. That is much different. To me it’s more like mom gave me money to pay the rent but my landlord is likely violating laws so in the meantime I am putting the rent in escrow while we sort out the facts.
      - johnnyanmac 2y ago
        >but my landlord is likely violating laws Which is stupid because you Uncle Orange has access to the spending records.
        encoderer 2y ago
        I don’t have an uncle orange. You must have me confused with somebody else.
      - 9dev 2y ago
        But that wasn’t your decision to make. Maybe your picture of the landlord is incomplete, and you act as the hot-headed, short-sighted teenager your are, instead of sitting down with mom to discuss the situation.
        encoderer 2y ago
        Disagree. You are allowed to have agency. Mom would be proud of you for not wasting her money. If there is no crime, the landlord will be made whole. Maybe with a little interest at the prevailing rate.
        9dev 2y ago
        And that's where the analogy falls apart, because yes, maybe it's okay for a teenager to have an agency, but billionaire friends of the president are not, in fact, allowed to have an agency on government spending! People who waltz in and have no fucking clue of how things work generally are not allowed to have an agency! Remember when Musk built the submarine to save the kids in the cave, was absolutely useless, even actively obstructed others from saving them, and finally resorted to denigrate the diver saving them as a pedophile? That's exactly the same thing he is doing right now.
        encoderer 2y ago
        He’s not a “billionaire friend” in this role. He was asked by the president to do a job and he’s doing it. You expect the president to do everything by himself? Trump likes businessmen. Steve Mnuchin was another “billionaire friend” and it’s hard find fault in his tenure running treasury.
        johnnyanmac 2y ago
        >He’s not a “billionaire friend” in this role. Yes he is. > He was asked by the president to do a job and he’s doing it. 1. And he did it in an illegal way, yes. If you wanna go back to Mom, you can go to the grocery but you cannot throw a bank heist and lock all employees out of the store so you can grab some bread 2. He doesn't have access to the store. Mom sent him to Costo without her card. You can't just storm into Costco. Go back to mom and get her card, if possible.
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    Meanwhile the laywer refuses because the constitution says that you cannot "save up money" that "your mom" allocated. Let alone choose to spend it on a lawyer instead of groceries. You need to argue with Mom about lawyer Money next quarter. Man, March is going to be bloody.
- encoderer 2y ago
  Remains to be seen. For now, they are just pausing payments. If they find serious issues they can likely go to congress and have them canceled outright. If not, they need to distribute the funds during the fiscal year. I don’t understand the pearl clutching. The government shuts down often due to spending issues. Payments pause when this happens. Moreover, everybody has known for decades that nobody is reading these 50,000 page appropriations bills. I’m willing to give musk and his guys some time to sort this out. The president has asked them to do this. If they go against his wishes there is no reason they will not be thrown under the bus. If he pardons them for obvious malfeasance it will make big political waves and likely change the outcome of the midterm elections, where a congress could begin impeachment.
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    >If they find serious issues they can likely go to congress and have them canceled outright uhh, no they can't. Those are also government elected representatives. Checks and balances. To "cancel congress", you need the courts to charge and convict them. You're going to find it very hard to do that from treasury records alone (AKA, how the executive branch spends the money allocated). >I don’t understand the pearl clutching. The government shuts down often due to spending issues. With that dismissal, you're not opening yourself up to understanding. Maybe there's wrongdoing; The answer isn't to charge into the treasury and hack it. That's the stupid part: Musk doesn't need to. He's clearly not TSI/TS clearance level, so he just needs trump to go in and look. Or have trump hire someone with that clearance to look in on his orders. Remember, this is the executive branch; Trump has all access powers here (within reason). >I’m willing to give musk and his guys some time to sort this out. I'm not. I didn't vote for him. You didn't. He was not approved by Senate, as is executive apointee tradition. He does not have clearance. "Asking" isn't enough. Where's this willingness coming from? Even if you just like the guy, you really want the man who laid off 80% of his staff to handle your money? >If they go against his wishes there is no reason they will not be thrown under the bus I can think of 8 or 9 figures why he wouldn't.
    - encoderer 2y ago
      You are just wrong here. You misread my comment. The “them” in my 3rd paragraph refers to the paused payments. If it turns out that what congress appropriated funds for is actually fraud, congress will want to know, and can amend that spending retroactive to this fiscal year. How is this controversial to you? Elon Musk was hand picked by the president to do this job. Clearly you do not like the president nor Elon but that is a personal view not held by a majority of voters in the last election.
normalaccess 2y ago
Correct, the executive branch can always opt to not spend the money it was allocated. It's just that as far as I can recall no one has ever really tried to spend less in the government. EDIT: I was mistaken, please look up Impoundment of appropriated funds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impoundment_of_appropriated_funds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impoundment_of_appropriated_fu...
- nessbot 2y ago
  That is simply not true. They'd have to go to congress to have the apportioned spending rescinded.
  - normalaccess 2y ago
    I stand corrected! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impoundment_of_appropriated_funds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impoundment_of_appropriated_fu...
- hamburga 2y ago
  Wrong; impoundment is illegal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impoundment_of_appropriated_funds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impoundment_of_appropriated_fu...
  - normalaccess 2y ago
    Oh, you learn something new every day. Gracias
    - nessbot 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - dredmorbius 2y ago
        OP did acknowledge and edit their comment to correct the misinfo. Sometimes we might want to more gently support that, as it is in itself rare. The advice to confirm belief before commenting is valid, the tone is overly harsh.
anigbrowl 2y ago
Congress mandated the creation of USAID in 1961. I don't hthink the executive branch has the legal authority to just abolish it by fiat or change its status from independent to a subordinate organ of the state department.
- labster 2y ago
  It doesn’t matter if Trump has the authority to do something if no one stops him. Laws are just words on paper. America is no longer a nation of laws. Period. We are a nation ruled by Trump and Musk.
  - llamaimperative 2y ago
    Eh that ship hasn’t sailed (yet) and this type of commentary isn’t productive toward preventing it from setting sail. We are in fact a nation of laws and we ought to demand enforcement.
  - nessbot 2y ago
    This type of talk just does the work of the authoritarian for them.
    - johnnyanmac 2y ago
      Perhaps, but what's anyone going to do about it?
  - brewdad 2y ago
    We are a nation of laws still. At least three judges have told Trump/Musk to stop what they are doing. The problem we are running into right now is who enforces the laws when the Executive branch decides they don't want to follow them?
cyanydeez 2y ago
The supreme Court already said administrative decisions need to follow the laws so Congress is the only ones who can decide which pencils get bought.

nessbot 2y ago

And what they are doing now is "skipping the movies and spending it on weed." Shutting down USAID, even if eventually Rubio came in and rolled that back is what you just described. That was an office created by congress.

b112 2y ago
No, what they're doing is skipping the movie, saving up money, hiring a lawyer, so mom loses the right to say "don't spend it on weed".
- abracadaniel 2y ago
  A better analogy might be that mom bought groceries for the starving family down the road with a check and you cancelled the check, stole the checkbook, and changed the bank account password.
  - encoderer 2y ago
    But clearly: did not spend it. Did not misappropriate it. That is much different. To me it’s more like mom gave me money to pay the rent but my landlord is likely violating laws so in the meantime I am putting the rent in escrow while we sort out the facts.
    - johnnyanmac 2y ago
      >but my landlord is likely violating laws Which is stupid because you Uncle Orange has access to the spending records.
      - encoderer 2y ago
        I don’t have an uncle orange. You must have me confused with somebody else.
    - 9dev 2y ago
      But that wasn’t your decision to make. Maybe your picture of the landlord is incomplete, and you act as the hot-headed, short-sighted teenager your are, instead of sitting down with mom to discuss the situation.
      - encoderer 2y ago
        Disagree. You are allowed to have agency. Mom would be proud of you for not wasting her money. If there is no crime, the landlord will be made whole. Maybe with a little interest at the prevailing rate.
        9dev 2y ago
        And that's where the analogy falls apart, because yes, maybe it's okay for a teenager to have an agency, but billionaire friends of the president are not, in fact, allowed to have an agency on government spending! People who waltz in and have no fucking clue of how things work generally are not allowed to have an agency! Remember when Musk built the submarine to save the kids in the cave, was absolutely useless, even actively obstructed others from saving them, and finally resorted to denigrate the diver saving them as a pedophile? That's exactly the same thing he is doing right now.
        encoderer 2y ago
        He’s not a “billionaire friend” in this role. He was asked by the president to do a job and he’s doing it. You expect the president to do everything by himself? Trump likes businessmen. Steve Mnuchin was another “billionaire friend” and it’s hard find fault in his tenure running treasury.
        johnnyanmac 2y ago
        >He’s not a “billionaire friend” in this role. Yes he is. > He was asked by the president to do a job and he’s doing it. 1. And he did it in an illegal way, yes. If you wanna go back to Mom, you can go to the grocery but you cannot throw a bank heist and lock all employees out of the store so you can grab some bread 2. He doesn't have access to the store. Mom sent him to Costo without her card. You can't just storm into Costco. Go back to mom and get her card, if possible.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  Meanwhile the laywer refuses because the constitution says that you cannot "save up money" that "your mom" allocated. Let alone choose to spend it on a lawyer instead of groceries. You need to argue with Mom about lawyer Money next quarter. Man, March is going to be bloody.
encoderer 2y ago
Remains to be seen. For now, they are just pausing payments. If they find serious issues they can likely go to congress and have them canceled outright. If not, they need to distribute the funds during the fiscal year. I don’t understand the pearl clutching. The government shuts down often due to spending issues. Payments pause when this happens. Moreover, everybody has known for decades that nobody is reading these 50,000 page appropriations bills. I’m willing to give musk and his guys some time to sort this out. The president has asked them to do this. If they go against his wishes there is no reason they will not be thrown under the bus. If he pardons them for obvious malfeasance it will make big political waves and likely change the outcome of the midterm elections, where a congress could begin impeachment.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  >If they find serious issues they can likely go to congress and have them canceled outright uhh, no they can't. Those are also government elected representatives. Checks and balances. To "cancel congress", you need the courts to charge and convict them. You're going to find it very hard to do that from treasury records alone (AKA, how the executive branch spends the money allocated). >I don’t understand the pearl clutching. The government shuts down often due to spending issues. With that dismissal, you're not opening yourself up to understanding. Maybe there's wrongdoing; The answer isn't to charge into the treasury and hack it. That's the stupid part: Musk doesn't need to. He's clearly not TSI/TS clearance level, so he just needs trump to go in and look. Or have trump hire someone with that clearance to look in on his orders. Remember, this is the executive branch; Trump has all access powers here (within reason). >I’m willing to give musk and his guys some time to sort this out. I'm not. I didn't vote for him. You didn't. He was not approved by Senate, as is executive apointee tradition. He does not have clearance. "Asking" isn't enough. Where's this willingness coming from? Even if you just like the guy, you really want the man who laid off 80% of his staff to handle your money? >If they go against his wishes there is no reason they will not be thrown under the bus I can think of 8 or 9 figures why he wouldn't.
  - encoderer 2y ago
    You are just wrong here. You misread my comment. The “them” in my 3rd paragraph refers to the paused payments. If it turns out that what congress appropriated funds for is actually fraud, congress will want to know, and can amend that spending retroactive to this fiscal year. How is this controversial to you? Elon Musk was hand picked by the president to do this job. Clearly you do not like the president nor Elon but that is a personal view not held by a majority of voters in the last election.

normalaccess 2y ago

Correct, the executive branch can always opt to not spend the money it was allocated. It's just that as far as I can recall no one has ever really tried to spend less in the government. EDIT: I was mistaken, please look up Impoundment of appropriated funds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impoundment_of_appropriated_funds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impoundment_of_appropriated_fu...

nessbot 2y ago
That is simply not true. They'd have to go to congress to have the apportioned spending rescinded.
- normalaccess 2y ago
  I stand corrected! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impoundment_of_appropriated_funds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impoundment_of_appropriated_fu...
hamburga 2y ago
Wrong; impoundment is illegal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impoundment_of_appropriated_funds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impoundment_of_appropriated_fu...
- normalaccess 2y ago
  Oh, you learn something new every day. Gracias
  - nessbot 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - dredmorbius 2y ago
      OP did acknowledge and edit their comment to correct the misinfo. Sometimes we might want to more gently support that, as it is in itself rare. The advice to confirm belief before commenting is valid, the tone is overly harsh.

anigbrowl 2y ago

Congress mandated the creation of USAID in 1961. I don't hthink the executive branch has the legal authority to just abolish it by fiat or change its status from independent to a subordinate organ of the state department.

labster 2y ago
It doesn’t matter if Trump has the authority to do something if no one stops him. Laws are just words on paper. America is no longer a nation of laws. Period. We are a nation ruled by Trump and Musk.
- llamaimperative 2y ago
  Eh that ship hasn’t sailed (yet) and this type of commentary isn’t productive toward preventing it from setting sail. We are in fact a nation of laws and we ought to demand enforcement.
- nessbot 2y ago
  This type of talk just does the work of the authoritarian for them.
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    Perhaps, but what's anyone going to do about it?
- brewdad 2y ago
  We are a nation of laws still. At least three judges have told Trump/Musk to stop what they are doing. The problem we are running into right now is who enforces the laws when the Executive branch decides they don't want to follow them?

cyanydeez 2y ago

The supreme Court already said administrative decisions need to follow the laws so Congress is the only ones who can decide which pencils get bought.