POLITICO (“Trump cancels $1B in federal spending in latest challenge to Congress“):

President Donald Trump informed congressional leaders Friday that he has unilaterally canceled almost $1 billion in federal funding without Congress’ consent — employing a budget maneuver many lawmakers consider illegal.

In a move that will almost certainly set up an ugly government funding battle after the midterms, Trump has again claimed the power to execute a so-called “pocket rescission” to nix money Congress has already enacted. The funding the president declared canceled is for immigration services, support to foreign countries, education programs, health research efforts and assistance for businesses owned by minorities.

By law, the president is allowed to send Congress a request to rescind federal funding, then withhold that money for 45 days while lawmakers consider whether to approve, reject or ignore it. Trump administration officials also argue they have the power to cancel funding without any congressional action by sending Congress a rescission request with less than 45 days left in the fiscal year. The argument is that the money is automatically canceled on Sept. 30, because it is withheld until funding lapses at the end of the fiscal year.

Last year Trump used the maneuver to cancel $4.9 billion in foreign aid.

The notion that Presidents have the authority to refuse to spend money Congress has appropriated is just wild. It radically diminishes what is arguably the legislative branch’s most important power. Article II already gives the President the power to veto bills, including budget bills. That gives him enormous leverage over the process. And, going back to FDR’s tenure, we have reversed the Constitutional design, with Presidents submitting a budget proposal to Congress as the starting point for their process.

Indeed, I find it bizarre that Congress put in place a process for presidents to withhold Congressionally-authorized spending, requiring Congress to take action to do the thing it already did and the President already signed. That gives a whole lot of power to the President’s party in Congress, while potentially undermining the wheeling and dealing that got the budget passed in the first place.

Clearly, even Congressional Republicans are going to fight this, hammer and tong.

The Senate’s top Republican appropriator, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, immediately blasted the move as illegal, saying in a statement Friday night that “any effort to rescind appropriated funds without congressional approval is a clear violation of the law.”

“This move shows that OMB intentionally withheld these funds for months to execute this unlawful cancellation of appropriations that were approved on a bipartisan basis and signed into law,” Collins added, pledging to work with other lawmakers “to address these illegal actions.”

Collins and other appropriators have already been on high alert in recent days, pressing multiple agencies about funding officials have yet to spend ahead of the expiration date.

Here, she is clearly much more than merely “concerned.” She’s downright miffed.

Top Republicans have rejected Democratic demands to undo Trump’s cancellation last summer of billions of dollars in foreign aid by pushing off the expiration date for that cash. They have also rebuffed the idea of preventing Trump from executing another pocket rescission this year by barring the president from sending a clawbacks request in the last quarter of the fiscal year.

Ah. Clearly, they have not read Federalist No. 10.

The House’s top Democratic appropriator, Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, called Friday for Republicans to join Democrats in “rejecting this attempt to circumvent Congress” and said the Trump administration has “clearly been unlawfully impounding funds all year just to get to this point.”

Washington Sen. Patty Murray, the Senate’s top Democratic appropriator, said White House budget director Russ Vought is sending a message to Congress that “your votes don’t count, and your laws are optional.”

“It is now time for my Republican colleagues who said they would never let this happen to stand up and join us to stop this,” Murray said in a statement, “and remind this administration this is not how this works.”

Alas, neither Obama nor Biden is currently in the White House.

While the Supreme Court has yet to rule on whether Trump has illegally impounded funding during his second term, the high court gave the go-ahead last year for the president to withhold the majority of the foreign aid he canceled through his first pocket rescission.

In fairness, that was an emergency/shadow docket ruling based on standing, not a final ruling. But it’s not a great sign.

To be sure, $1 billion is hardly a rounding error in a $7.5 trillion budget. But regardless of one’s views on the merits of the spending in question, allowing the President to simply ignore Congress’ wishes—signed into law by the same President!—stands the Constitution on its head. Indeed, if presidents can simply spend money as they wish, there’s no real reason to have a legislative branch at all.