Washington – Can Elon Musk close a federal authority, send his employees home and hire expenditure programs that were approved by the congress?
Yes, at least for the moment.
Washington shaken this question and answer because they highlight the strong difference between conservative constitutional government and one-man rule under the direction of the president.
Musk described the US Agency for International Development, which distributes humanitarian aid abroad, as a “criminal organization”. It is a “Viper -Nest of radical Marxists who hate America,” he wrote on X, his social media platform. “Time to die.”
President Trump agreed and said that it was “operated by a series of radical insane. And we bring them out. “
Their criticism would have caused the Congress led by Republicans to strongly reduce the financing for USAID or perhaps vote in order to completely eliminate the agency.
But Muschus and Trump moved at least temporarily without taking the congress.
The constitution gives the congress the authority to adopt laws, to raise taxes and spend money, and it gives the president the obligation to “make sure that the laws are faithfully executed”.
But Trump has not shown a tendency to adhere to the separation of powers that give the congress a leading role.
Instead, in the first two weeks in the White House, he made it clear that he was determined to lead the government based on dextrications, not by proposing and adopting conservative laws in the congress.
And he gave Musk, the richest man in the world, the authority, to eradicate what he sees as wasteful expenses in the entire government.
Musk and Trump indicated that their next goal could be the US Ministry of Education.
The Democrats were worried to find out that Musk had the authority to examine the issue of expenditure of the Ministry of Finance. They said that this would include all persons that receive the payments of social security, medicare, medicaid or similar federal programs as well as tax refunds.
“In front of our eyes, an unemployed shadow government is carrying out an enemy takeover of the federal government,” said Charles Schumer, chairman of the Senate reduction (DN.Y.).
But the Democrats admitted that they could do little except alarm.
“Trump and Musk have absolutely no legal authority to withhold funds” that were approved by the congress, said Senator Patty Murray (D-Wash.). “It is up to our Republican colleagues to disturb it.”
But even if the congress is aside, the efforts of the Trump government to block approved federal expenditure can be stopped in court.
On Monday the US district judge Loren L. Alikhan in Washington expanded a temporary injunction This lifted the budget order, which wanted to freeze some federal expenses.
She did this with the conclusion that the order of the administration came into conflict with the constitution.
“The appropriation of the government's resources is reserved for the congress, not the executive,” she wrote in a 30-page opinion. “The authority of the legislator of the handbag is the ultimate check of the … makes the executive.”
She said that the command for freezing expenditure “tried to remove the power of the wallet from the only government branch that was entitled to lead it”.
At some point, the administration lawyers will probably appeal at the DC Circuit Court and then at the Supreme Court of Justice, but they may be waiting for a cheaper case.
During the campaign, Trump had said that he was planning to question the laws that forbid the president of confiscating or refusing to spend money that had been acquired by the congress.