Money is power. In our system of government, that power was intended to rest squarely with Congress. But it doesn’t.

In recent years, presidents of both parties have sidestepped Congress’s “power of the purse” authority and steadily chipped away at their powers under Article I of the Constitution — turning appropriations into suggestions rather than binding law.

The people’s priorities

The Constitution entrusts spending decisions to Congress because they are about more than dollars and budgets — they reflect the priorities and the will of the people who elected their representatives to make those choices on their behalf.

But what was designed to be one of the legislature’s strongest checks on executive power has been weakened by clever workarounds, bureaucratic delays, and outright de

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