Power of the Purse

3 Key excerpts on "Power of the Purse"

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  America's National Debt

  Examining the Facts

  • Thomas Arndt(Author)
  • 2022(Publication Date)
  • ABC-CLIO

    (Publisher)

  3 Congress and the Power of the Purse

  There are certain fundamental powers that any country or government must be prepared to contend with and carry out effectively. In addition to basic powers of law enforcement or “police powers” to regulate affairs within one’s own sovereign borders, governments exercise “power of the sword,” referring to a country’s capabilities to engage in military conflict with foreign actors. Crucially, however, for the purposes of this chapter, there is also what has come to be known as the “Power of the Purse,” referring to the task of managing public financial issues, including both taxing and spending. In the United States, this power is reserved almost entirely for the legislative branch of government, as is the case in nearly all democratically inspired political systems.

  In the United States, popularly elected lawmakers are in charge of deciding how to both raise revenue for the federal government and spend tax dollars. These roles for the national legislature are clearly set forth in Article 1 of the U.S. Constitution. To be more specific, Section 7, Clause 1, states that “All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with amendments as on other Bills.” Section 9, Clause 7, goes on to assert that “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.”

  The spending of money by Congress is an issue of paramount importance and is ever present in the country’s politics. In fact, it looms large over every other policy issue that can be imagined. Even the power of the sword, which is often considered to be the most consequential of all governmental powers (due to the direct impact on matters of life and death), requires the Power of the Purse to make it all possible. Armies and navies are unable to march or sail to war if they lack sufficient financial power to back them up. Similarly, funding for education, transportation, national parks, social welfare programs like Medicare and Social Security, and scientific research, to name but a few areas, all come from Congress. Clearly, the power to spend permeates nearly all social and political action. Alexander Hamilton alluded to this in numerous instances throughout his career. In a letter to James Duane in 1780, he criticized the lack of purse string powers held by the Congress of the Confederation under the Articles of Confederation (America’s initial failed attempt at a constitution) by insisting that it deserved “perpetual funds … appropriated to [Congress’s] use, for without certain revenues, a government can have no power; that power, which holds the purse strings absolutely, must rule” (Hamilton, 1780).

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  The Cost of Congress

  What Americans Get for Their Money

  • Karen Kunz, Stavros Atsas(Authors)
  • 2022(Publication Date)
  • Praeger

    (Publisher)

  CHAPTER SIX

  The Power of the Purse

  The framers vested Congress with the Power of the Purse by providing in the Constitution that “[n]o Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.” As James Madison explained, the framers did so for two primary reasons. First, this arrangement ensured that the government remained directly accountable to the will of the people: “power over the purse may, in fact, be regarded as the most complete and effectual weapon with which any constitution can arm the immediate representatives of the people, for obtaining a redress of every grievance, and for carrying into effect every just and salutary measure.” Second, Congress through its Power of the Purse holds a key check on the power of the other branches, allowing it to reduce “all the overgrown prerogatives of the other branches of government.”

  The meaning of the Appropriations Clause is straightforward: No money can be paid out of the Treasury unless it has been appropriated by an act of Congress. Congress’s Power of the Purse vests in Congress the power and duty to affirmatively authorize all expenditures, and the Constitution provides Congress with the power to enact statutes to protect and exercise this power. Congress has largely done this through the annual budget and appropriations process and a series of permanent statutes that establish controls on the use of appropriated funds.

  — Letter from Thomas Armstrong, General Counsel for GAO, to Chairman John Yarmuth and Ranking Member Steve Womack, House Committee on the Budget. Testimony before the House Committee on the Budget—Congress’s Constitutional Power of the Purse and the Government Accountability Office’s Role to Serve that Power.

  The quote above is derived from Congressional testimony, during which the GAO’s General Counsel reminded the House Budget Committee of Congress’s utmost priority. While a bit long, it clearly illustrates Congress’s constitutionally bound roles and responsibilities in managing taxpayers’ dollars and funding federal government.

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  Working the Federal Budget

  A Guide

  • George D. Krumbhaar(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  This point is important because it makes congressional intent, embodied in the laws Congress passes, the guiding principle of federal government administration; it also arms Congress with exclusive and permanent influence over such things as taxation, spending, and the regulation of interstate commerce. It even gives Congress substantial influence over areas that the Constitution grants to the president (e.g., conduct of foreign affairs), inasmuch as Congress can choose not to fund such presidential activities with which it disagrees.

  In the eighteenth century, the Constitution’s many checks and balances—including these—fit the idea of a nation intent on keeping control over the purse away from the head of state. James Madison9 described the power over the purse as “the most compleat (sic) and effectual weapon with which any constitution can arm the immediate representatives of the people, for obtaining a redress of every grievance, and for carrying into effect every just and salutary measure.” In this context, the term “immediate representatives of the people” meant the directly-elected House of Representatives; Senators were originally appointed by the various state legislatures.

  The Constitution’s Attempt to Define American Federalism Permeates Budget Debates

  Though the founding fathers deliberately placed the taxing and spending powers in Congress, disagreements over the nature of our federal system of government have been a central theme in debates over budget policy. After more than 200 years, Americans are not of one mind over how far the federal government can or should go in taxing its citizens or spending taxpayer money:

  •    The debate over taxes . Adopting the Constitution did not immediately put to rest the extent of Congress’s power to tax Americans. The income tax was litigated up to the Supreme Court.10 The Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which was supposed to settle the legality of the income tax, raised several more constitutional questions, which were also litigated to the Supreme Court.11 Even now, a common thread among conservative political leaders is that taxpayer funds should find their way back where they belong: “in the pockets of American families.”12 Despite this controversy, and the political sensitivity of taxation generally, it is now settled law that Congress has the power to tax income from virtually any source, even if there is substantial disagreement over how high those taxes should be.13

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