Top Senate Republican Protests Trump Bid to Withhold Spending

Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Susan Collins (R-ME) accused President Donald Trump of illegally refusing to spend $2.9 billion approved by Congress, teaming with Democrats in an early salvo in the simmering struggle between Congress and the White House over which has the ultimate power over federal spending. In a letter signed by committee Ranking Member Patty Murray (D-WA), the legislators asset that the administration had violated the six-month spending law approved by Congress. They pointed to a memo President Trump had sent to Congress on March 24 that declared that only a portion of the $12.4 billion designated as emergency funding in the legislation would actually be spent, “because I do not concur that the added spending is truly for emergency needs.” The appropriators vigorously contested that assertion, arguing that the law requires the administration to spend all emergency money or none of it, and does not allow the president to decide for himself what money to spend and what not to.  “Just as the president does not have a line-item veto, he does not have the ability to pick and choose which emergency spending to designate,” the letter said. They noted that the Trump administration’s interpretation of federal budget law was at odds with how presidents of both parties had viewed it for two decades. “It is incumbent on all of us to follow the law as written — not as we would like it to be,” Sens Collins and Murray wrote.