Congress must defend its budget powers from Trump

The Trump administration, in its latest bid to seize more executive power, has unilaterally canceled nearly $1 billion in spending previously authorized by Congress.

The White House is working to kill funding of migrant services and other initiatives in the Department of Homeland Security and Department Health and Human Services. But the objective worthiness of the programs isn’t even at issue here. It’s not the policy but the process.

What’s appalling is that President Donald Trump is attempting to usurp legislative budget authority granted by the Constitution. And it happens just as the Republican House and Senate majorities are about to be tested at the polls.

The lawmakers’ frequent bowing to Trump and refusal to check and question his outsized privileges and power has become a theme for opposition Democrats.

Trump has evaded input by federal lawmakers since he returned to office last year on big issues from the war on Iran to tariffs to foreign aid.

Even the scrupulously nonpartisan Government Accountability Office calls “pocket rescissions” such as Trump’s billion-dollar cancellation illegal.

President Jimmy Carter ordered one nearly 50 years ago — but did so within a required 45-day period for congressional review. In this case the impoundment of funds was ordered near the end of the fiscal year with Congress out of town through the election, making a proper review impossible.

Last year Trump slashed $4.9 billion in congressionally approved foreign aid, but the Supreme Court let him do it, citing his authority on foreign affairs. Now, however, the rescissions involve domestic spending. Cuts in that spending are for Congress to decide.

Trump “requested” rescissions from Congress but in reality he’s running the clock by freezing the funds until the authority to spend them expires.

Maine GOP Sen. Susan Collins insists they aren’t legal. She’s facing a Democratic challenger in November and called this controversy the latest effort by Trump’s budget office to “undermine Congress’s Constitutional power of the purse.”

Aside from migrant aid, the funding in question included HHS grants for research on gender-affirming care, diversity-focused initiatives and other categories deplored by the president.

Not coincidentally, a White House news release announcing the cuts notes some of the organizations involved are led by individuals who served in President Barack Obama’s administration.

That’s a tell.

It should no longer need to be said that the legislative chambers at the Capitol do not exist to help a president avenge perceived detractors.

The next Congress that takes power in January must stand up, not so much for these specific programs, as for their right to fund them. Unfortunately, Democratic Washington Sen. Patty Murray’s proposed legislative language to guard against pocket rescissions was squelched by the GOP majority.

Congress must accept responsibility for the consequences of honest oversight and independent judgments, a commitment that’s in short supply in Washington these days — as is enforcing constitutional limits on official power.