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For the same reason it was legal for Biden to stop payment on contacts for Trump’s border wall: https://www.politico.com/news/2021/04/30/biden-terminates-border

For the same reason it was legal for Biden to stop payment on contacts for Trump’s border wall: https://www.politico.com/news/2021/04/30/biden-terminates-border-wall-construction-485123 https://www.politico.com/news/2021/04/30/biden-terminates-bo.... If Congress appropriates a specific amount of money for a specific thing, the president has limited power to not spend the money. But many cases, Congress doesn’t appropriate specific amounts of money for specific things. It appropriates a bunch of money and gives it to agencies and department. That leaves the president with a lot of discretion in how and whether to spend the money. It doesn’t help that Congress has been operating under continuing resolutions. That means Congress is shoveling money to the executive branch but hasn’t enacted former appropriations bills for many things. As to why Musk can do it. Treasury is a department, not even an independent agency. The president runs it, along with the president’s appointee the secretary of treasury. DOGE is an office within the Executive Office of the President. The President can just create offices for executive managers, like Obama did to appoint the first Chief Technology Officer: https://www.theregister.com/2009/04/20/aneesh_chopra_us_cto/ https://www.theregister.com/2009/04/20/aneesh_chopra_us_cto/.

mech422 2y ago
>>As to why Musk can do it. Treasury is a department, not even an independent agency. The president runs it, along with the president’s appointee the secretary of treasury. DOGE is an office within the Executive Office of the President. That doesn't give Musk or DOGE authority over it, any more then the dept. of the Interior can control what gets paid..
- rayiner 2y ago
  I assume Musk is just sending an email to Scott Bessent who orders some Treasury employee to actually stop the payment.
  - mech422 2y ago
    I'd probably have to agree, something along those lines... However, I can't say "Govt by good ole boy network" seems proper - and its really hard to figure out what power/limits/check and balances for all this is... Musk basically took over the IT arm of the executive branch ("U.S. Digital Service") - not sure how that allows him and other people without clearances access to secure data, or to make spending decisions for other groups..
    - rayiner 2y ago
      There’s no “check and balances” issue here. This is entirely within the executive branch. Congress forked over a bunch of money to the executive to give out as grants. People with delegated authority from the elected president and his senate confirmed department head are stopping payment on some grants. That delegated authority is the only authority any executive branch employee has. Now, it’s fair to say that Trump and Musk are exploiting the fact that Congress abdicated its “power of the purse” to a great extent by giving the executive a bunch of slush funds instead of making specific appropriations. But that’s Congress’s problem. Also, Musk has a top secret security clearance. But I assume SSNs aren’t even classified and there’s tons of line employees with access to the databases.
      - ggm 2y ago
        > Also, Musk has a top secret security clearance. But I assume SSNs aren’t even classified and there’s tons of line employees with access to the databases. Useful info. I had forgotten he had that. Considering his 420 romps, it's surprising he retains it because more lowly worms lose theirs on less cause. But, your assumptions about line employees belies what I think is pretty well established ICT practice in government. If you can read it, your reading is logged. if you can alter it, you're in a small set and it's constrained by training/induction and also very strongly inculcated into "properly" Just randomly dumping the entire dataset to some disk you have brought in, and telling your wizzkid to look at it bigly, would not fall into usual practices.
      - mech422 2y ago
        It appears Musk's employees don't have clearance - which is apparently why they were denied access by the USAID _security_ officials. Its sorta their jobs. Given a lot of us work in Tech, I doubt most of our security officers would accept "tons of line employess" have access as an excuse :-P Not to mention plugging in hard drives (how are federal system even allowing usb devices to be accessed?? My stupid work laptop locks that down ??) Also, there may not be 'check and balances' but there is certainly procedure - which seems to be why lawsuits were filed. Specifically it appears around: "whether DOGE is a presidential advisory commission obeying federal transparency rules about certain practices, such as disclosure and hiring" and "alleged violation of the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which requires that "the advisory committee have a fair balance in viewpoints represented, that they do not meet in secret, and that their records and work product be made available for public inspection." Anyway - guess we'll see how it plays out - but I wish there were some more clear cut explanations about
apical_dendrite 2y ago
This is a completely false equivalence. Trump used emergency powers to divert military construction funding to build the wall. He also diverted funds from other sources, like asset forfeiture. Biden did not stop payments on money that congress had authorized for building the wall. If Congress has explicitly appropriated funds for refugee resettlement, then Elon Musk can't decide to just not spend that money because he doesn't like refugee resettlement. See Train v. City of New York.
- rayiner 2y ago
  Congress appropriated funds for a border wall. From the GOA: https://www.gao.gov/products/b-333110-0 https://www.gao.gov/products/b-333110-0 (“Congress has appropriated funds to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) specifically for constructing fencing or barrier system at the southern border of the United States, commonly referred to as the border wall. On January 20, 2021, the President issued a Proclamation directing a pause in the construction of the border wall and a pause in obligation of funds for the wall.”). And Congress didn’t specifically appropriate funds for these payments. They’re coming out of block grants. Congress has the power to appropriate funds for specific purposes that the president can’t block. But often it doesn’t do that.
  - apical_dendrite 2y ago
    Dude, read the link that you sent. > We conclude that delays in the obligation and expenditure of DHS's appropriations are programmatic delays, not impoundments. DHS and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) have shown that the use of funds is delayed in order to perform environmental reviews and consult with various stakeholders, as required by law, and determine project funding needs in light of changes that warrant using funds differently than initially planned. As explained below, because the delay here is precipitated by legal requirements, That's not the same thing as the richest guy in the world going after a refugee charity because a convicted felon and QAnon conspiracy theorist (Flynn) happened to tweet a screenshot of himself searching the government contract database for the word "Lutheran" because for some crazy reason he hates Lutherans or something Yes, Congress did appropriate some money for the wall, but most of it was entirely at the discretion of the executive. There was a huge court case about it that was rendered moot when Trump lost the election.
jhanschoo 2y ago
> For the same reason it was legal for Biden to stop payment on contacts for Trump’s border wall I had a look at the linked article. You are misrepresenting it. Cancelling contracts is not stopping payment. Likewise the OP headline is completely misrepresenting the situation regarding the Treasury as well. I'll address that in a top-level comment.
- rayiner 2y ago
  These are discretionary grants, not payment for services rendered. So even less binding than a contract.
forgingahead 2y ago
This sound be the top comment, and the discussion should be around why this is the case (how Congress appropriates money like this), what alternatives there could be, and what are the pros/cons of each different option. Sadly HN is no longer a place where this can happen.

mech422 2y ago

>>As to why Musk can do it. Treasury is a department, not even an independent agency. The president runs it, along with the president’s appointee the secretary of treasury. DOGE is an office within the Executive Office of the President. That doesn't give Musk or DOGE authority over it, any more then the dept. of the Interior can control what gets paid..

rayiner 2y ago
I assume Musk is just sending an email to Scott Bessent who orders some Treasury employee to actually stop the payment.
- mech422 2y ago
  I'd probably have to agree, something along those lines... However, I can't say "Govt by good ole boy network" seems proper - and its really hard to figure out what power/limits/check and balances for all this is... Musk basically took over the IT arm of the executive branch ("U.S. Digital Service") - not sure how that allows him and other people without clearances access to secure data, or to make spending decisions for other groups..
  - rayiner 2y ago
    There’s no “check and balances” issue here. This is entirely within the executive branch. Congress forked over a bunch of money to the executive to give out as grants. People with delegated authority from the elected president and his senate confirmed department head are stopping payment on some grants. That delegated authority is the only authority any executive branch employee has. Now, it’s fair to say that Trump and Musk are exploiting the fact that Congress abdicated its “power of the purse” to a great extent by giving the executive a bunch of slush funds instead of making specific appropriations. But that’s Congress’s problem. Also, Musk has a top secret security clearance. But I assume SSNs aren’t even classified and there’s tons of line employees with access to the databases.
    - ggm 2y ago
      > Also, Musk has a top secret security clearance. But I assume SSNs aren’t even classified and there’s tons of line employees with access to the databases. Useful info. I had forgotten he had that. Considering his 420 romps, it's surprising he retains it because more lowly worms lose theirs on less cause. But, your assumptions about line employees belies what I think is pretty well established ICT practice in government. If you can read it, your reading is logged. if you can alter it, you're in a small set and it's constrained by training/induction and also very strongly inculcated into "properly" Just randomly dumping the entire dataset to some disk you have brought in, and telling your wizzkid to look at it bigly, would not fall into usual practices.
    - mech422 2y ago
      It appears Musk's employees don't have clearance - which is apparently why they were denied access by the USAID _security_ officials. Its sorta their jobs. Given a lot of us work in Tech, I doubt most of our security officers would accept "tons of line employess" have access as an excuse :-P Not to mention plugging in hard drives (how are federal system even allowing usb devices to be accessed?? My stupid work laptop locks that down ??) Also, there may not be 'check and balances' but there is certainly procedure - which seems to be why lawsuits were filed. Specifically it appears around: "whether DOGE is a presidential advisory commission obeying federal transparency rules about certain practices, such as disclosure and hiring" and "alleged violation of the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which requires that "the advisory committee have a fair balance in viewpoints represented, that they do not meet in secret, and that their records and work product be made available for public inspection." Anyway - guess we'll see how it plays out - but I wish there were some more clear cut explanations about

apical_dendrite 2y ago

This is a completely false equivalence. Trump used emergency powers to divert military construction funding to build the wall. He also diverted funds from other sources, like asset forfeiture. Biden did not stop payments on money that congress had authorized for building the wall. If Congress has explicitly appropriated funds for refugee resettlement, then Elon Musk can't decide to just not spend that money because he doesn't like refugee resettlement. See Train v. City of New York.

rayiner 2y ago
Congress appropriated funds for a border wall. From the GOA: https://www.gao.gov/products/b-333110-0 https://www.gao.gov/products/b-333110-0 (“Congress has appropriated funds to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) specifically for constructing fencing or barrier system at the southern border of the United States, commonly referred to as the border wall. On January 20, 2021, the President issued a Proclamation directing a pause in the construction of the border wall and a pause in obligation of funds for the wall.”). And Congress didn’t specifically appropriate funds for these payments. They’re coming out of block grants. Congress has the power to appropriate funds for specific purposes that the president can’t block. But often it doesn’t do that.
- apical_dendrite 2y ago
  Dude, read the link that you sent. > We conclude that delays in the obligation and expenditure of DHS's appropriations are programmatic delays, not impoundments. DHS and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) have shown that the use of funds is delayed in order to perform environmental reviews and consult with various stakeholders, as required by law, and determine project funding needs in light of changes that warrant using funds differently than initially planned. As explained below, because the delay here is precipitated by legal requirements, That's not the same thing as the richest guy in the world going after a refugee charity because a convicted felon and QAnon conspiracy theorist (Flynn) happened to tweet a screenshot of himself searching the government contract database for the word "Lutheran" because for some crazy reason he hates Lutherans or something Yes, Congress did appropriate some money for the wall, but most of it was entirely at the discretion of the executive. There was a huge court case about it that was rendered moot when Trump lost the election.

jhanschoo 2y ago

> For the same reason it was legal for Biden to stop payment on contacts for Trump’s border wall I had a look at the linked article. You are misrepresenting it. Cancelling contracts is not stopping payment. Likewise the OP headline is completely misrepresenting the situation regarding the Treasury as well. I'll address that in a top-level comment.

rayiner 2y ago
These are discretionary grants, not payment for services rendered. So even less binding than a contract.

forgingahead 2y ago

This sound be the top comment, and the discussion should be around why this is the case (how Congress appropriates money like this), what alternatives there could be, and what are the pros/cons of each different option. Sadly HN is no longer a place where this can happen.