Washington is staring down yet another government shutdown. The script is familiar: Appropriators spend recklessly, Congress blows past deadlines, and taxpayers are left footing the bill for dysfunction. But this time, there’s a difference. The Trump administration just reached for a long-dormant tool — the pocket rescission — and used it to cancel billions in foreign aid funding.

The reaction from Democrats was immediate outrage. They called it illegal, reckless, and dangerous. But here’s the truth: the pocket rescission has been in law for 50 years. Congress wrote it into the 1974 Budget Control Act as a way for presidents to challenge spending that never should have been enacted in the first place. For half a century, lawmakers have had the chance to clarify or close this so-ca

See Full Page