The Power of the Purse Cuts Both Ways

Two bills no one bothered to fight over — water projects for Colorado, land into trust for a Florida tribe — passed Congress and died anyway, by veto ^[1]. The veto was not a judgment on either bill. It is a doctrine now, stated by the president himself before the election: veto everything, so the other side comes to the table to negotiate.

I think the Republicans are going to win - but if there was gridlock, what happens is I veto everything, and then the Democrats come and want to make a deal. — Donald Trump

He pledged the same thing in blunter form for his final two years — the "Mr. Veto" plan.

If that happens, I guess I'll become Mr. Veto. — Donald Trump

The incoming majority has answered with the power of the purse. Democrats are already blocking a $70 billion emergency Pentagon request and stalling the defense authorization and appropriations bills to force an end to the Iran war ^[2]. Chuck Schumer does not pretend the agenda will become law — he concedes the point as strategy ^[3].

If he vetoes it, it will show the divisions. — Chuck Schumer

There is also the confirmation power — Democrats have vowed to block Supreme Court and Cabinet nominees — but that lever stops people and redirects nothing ^[4]. The money is the only instrument they hold that can change what the government does. The problem is that the purse they won arrives contested, because the other side has already run the same refusal of money — at the states' expense. During the record shutdown last fall, the administration froze or canceled roughly $28 billion in grants to Democratic-led states: $18 billion from New York, $2.1 billion from Chicago, $7.6 billion in clean-energy money across sixteen states that voted for Harris ^[5]. Officials treated the shutdown as an "unprecedented opportunity" for permanent cuts, and the president personally reviewed which "Democrat Agencies" to cut with his budget director ^[5]. That is the same move the new majority now plans — refuse the money — and the executive ran it first, in earnest, a full year before the sweep. The ledger only deepens. Redirection is standing practice, not an emergency measure: money moved out of scientific research, foreign aid, and food assistance into the Iran war and a nine-fold expansion of immigration enforcement, with no new appropriation ^[6]. The machinery for political control of spending is already on the books: the Office of Management and Budget finalized a rule effective October 1 — weeks before the election — letting political appointees award and terminate hundreds of billions in grants with minimal explanation, over the objections of twenty-two state attorneys general and Susan Collins herself ^[7]. And the last Republican reconciliation bill — the budget shortcut that needs only a simple majority — pre-funded immigration and border agencies for three years, straight through the incoming majority's term, without the usual oversight ^[8]. Collins, the Republican who chairs appropriations, is the witness that her own side already lost these fights ^[9].

I’m not going to be able to prevail on everything. — Susan Collins

Congress did counterattack, and won on paper. It blocked the proposed cuts to the science agencies; the National Institutes of Health came out $415 million ahead. And still, more than 10,000 doctorate-trained experts left the government, and 74,000 clinical-trial participants saw their trials disrupted ^[10]. The mechanism is plain: a freeze stops payrolls and programs, people leave, and restored dollars do not reconstitute the people. One judge halted one of the freezes, ruling the administration had tried to seize the power of the purse itself ^[5]. Congress built its first anti-withholding fence — binding language meant to stop the president from refusing to spend money for programs he dislikes — passed it 397 to 28, above his own request, and the White House endorsed the package anyway as "fiscally responsible" ^[11]. But every one of those counterattacks landed after the damage was done. Two facts blunt the leverage. Congress has now failed to pass full appropriations for thirty consecutive years, governing instead through continuing resolutions — stopgap bills that keep the government open at last year's levels ^[12]. The purse only ever bites inside compressed deadline fights. And the president has already shown he can outlast a record shutdown and treat it as an opportunity rather than a problem to end ^[13][5]. The first collision is December 11, when a funding bill expires and the standoff begins ^[14]. This is not the civics-textbook reassertion of the purse. It is a test of symmetric withholding: Congress can refuse new money, and the executive can refuse to spend old money. The record shows the two refusals bite at different speeds, and the executive's is faster. This read is wrong if a veto is overridden on a major priority. Tariff rollback is the one live candidate — the inflation mandate is real, and Republicans have broken with the president on his tariffs — though Schumer does not sound certain the votes are there ^[15][16].

He can veto it, but yes, but I think we’ll get good Republican support for that. — Chuck Schumer

It is wrong if the administration complies with the anti-withholding fence without a court fight, or if policy reversal arrives through ordinary legislation rather than funding leverage. If any of those happen, this read is wrong.