Oh boy oh boy (also known as "I detest Russell Vought")

 

From the Washington Post, and things aren't changing:

Trump administration is preparing to challenge budget law, U.S. officials say (June)

"Interviews with federal workers show that a wide spectrum of government spending has already been stalled. Major scientific research grants have been terminated without public notice in recent weeks. At one federal agency, staff were told — via a directive that took effect on a Sunday — that almost all contracts over $250,000 no longer could be signed. At the General Services Administration, which manages federal real estate, the Trump administration is trying to cut costs by rejecting many agencies’ requests for facilities repairs paid for by those agencies. In some instances, officials say it’s unclear whether the budget law has been violated already or is merely on track to be breached — but the rejections have provoked internal alarm about their legality either way."

Trump budget officials claim sweeping spending power from Congress, records show

Russell Vought, the White House budget director and architect of Project 2025, would have vast authority to approve or block billions in federal spending, the records show.

"The agency’s newly released documents, made public under the court order, show Trump’s budget office is imposing litmus tests on releasing money — demanding plans from agencies to show they are following guidance Trump has laid out in executive actions, such as avoiding spending on diversity programs. While Trump has authority to issue those directives, experts say they do not, under law, carry the same weight as congressional actions.

The documents show OMB has in some cases blocked the release of funding until agencies provide a White House-approved spending plan and in other cases prevented funds from being spent that conflict with Trump’s executive orders.

The restrictions effectively give Vought, the director of the White House budget office and an architect of the controversial conservative governing plan Project 2025, the power to approve or deny virtually all spending decisions. The records do not provide a full accounting of government funding that has been withheld."

And there's this:

“The president ran on the notion that the Impoundment Control Act is unconstitutional. I agree with that,” Vought said in Senate testimony in January, referencing the law that prevents the president from unilaterally withholding funding.

Here's the simple thing:  what they are doing is performing line item vetoes (and letting Vought carry them out, too).  Presidents have wanted line-item veto power for a long time, at least back to Reagan, and probably earlier. Governors in many states have that power. But Presidents don't.  So what they are doing is illegal multiple ways. And they know it, because Vought said it. They are deliberately breaking the law because they want a Constitutional showdown on the Impoundment Control Act.

Is it coming?  

Or will the Supreme Court 6 continue to pave the road to authoritarianism? 

Steve Brodner thinks so.