Plaques are the kind of thing that make most people’s eyes glaze over.
But in July, a plaque in the Rayburn House Office Building, where lawmakers were meeting to consider a plan to spend taxpayer dollars, drew some attention.
That’s because the plaque, which displays the line from the Constitution that gives Congress the power of the purse, had disappeared without explanation. Some time later, the plaque had been returned to its home.
Streetlight didn’t uncover where the plaque went during its journey away from its spot on the dais, where it had stood for years. Congressmen who mentioned the plaque had gone missing, Reps. Mike Levin (D-California) and Tom Cole (R-Oklahoma), who chairs the House Appropriations Committee, didn’t answer how long it was MIA, who removed it or why.
Mystery aside, the disappearance embodies an ongoing conflict between the nation’s executive and legislative branches.
The Constitution gives Congress the power to appropriate taxpayer funds, and the executive branch is responsible for spending them. But President Donald Trump and Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought believe the Impoundment Control Act, which blocks the executive branch from canceling or withholding funds without approval from Congress, is unconstitutional, and the executive branch can spend taxpayer funds however it likes.
The federal government is expressing that belief where it counts: through a sustained pattern of not spending funds as Congress appropriated them.
“I know we all agree that we have a constitutional responsibility—not an option, but a responsibility—to protect Congress’s spending authority as a coequal branch of government,” Levin said during a House Appropriations Committee meeting in July.
“I know we all agree because I see it on a plaque up there,” he added, reading its message aloud: No money shall be drawn from the treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law.
“I’m happy to see that plaque back up there, Mr. Chairman,” Levin said.
“I can’t take credit for the plaque,” Cole said. “But whoever did it, thank you very much. It’s an appropriate thing to do.”
Text giving Congress the power of the purse also disappeared from the Library of Congress’s online version of the Constitution
About three weeks after that hearing, lawyers noticed that sections of the Constitution had disappeared from the Library of Congress’s annotated version online. The missing sections—8, 9 and 10 from Article 1, which lays out powers held by Congress—included the line from the plaque.
Hours after the public raised concerns about the missing text, the Library of Congress restored it, attributing its absence to a coding error.
Pointing to actions ranging from canceled, delayed and frozen grants to July’s budget cuts package, Democrats serving on House and Senate appropriations committees expressed concerns during the summer that lawmakers are losing their power to direct spending of taxpayer funds. Some Democrats worried that Vought, in particular, wants to reduce the role of the committees during the appropriations process.
Spokespeople for Cole and Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, didn’t respond to interview requests. The lawmakers didn’t answer if they have concerns that Vought aims to reduce the role of their committees or that appropriations they pass could later be undone through bills pushed by the Trump administration.
The Office of Management and Budget didn’t reply to an interview request with Vought. The agency and Vought didn’t answer how he would address concerns that the administration’s federal spending practices violate the Constitution’s separation of powers. They also didn’t provide a response to concerns that Vought wants to reduce the role of the appropriations committees.
In July, during another House Appropriations Committee meeting on housing and transportation funding bills, Rep. Rosa DeLauro (Connecticut), the top Democrat on the committee, brought up the US Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) delayed grants for fair housing, among other examples of the Trump administration’s spending veering from what Congress approved.
“All of these programs Congress enacted and appropriated funding for in law—I repeat, in law,” DeLauro said. “They are substituting Congress’ decisions and judgment with their own, turning Article 1 of the Constitution on its head, yet this bill ignores these facts and realities, setting an extremely dangerous precedent for handing over our power to the executive branch.”
A government watchdog found the Trump administration illegally withheld funding in five cases this year
As part of a slew of national and state anti-corruption laws passed in response to the Watergate scandal, Congress approved the Impoundment Control Act in 1974. President Richard Nixon had refused to spend budget items approved by lawmakers, and the law aimed to prevent that situation by requiring presidents to notify Congress before delaying, withholding or canceling funds. Congress then must approve the cuts, called rescissions, for them to go into effect.
Since Trump’s term began in January, his administration has withheld, frozen and delayed the distribution of funds that Congress previously appropriated, including essential HUD grants.
This year, the US Government Accountability Office has issued five reports finding the Trump administration illegally withheld funds Congress had appropriated to federal agencies.
Cole and Collins didn’t answer if they’re satisfied with the Trump administration’s approach to federal spending, especially with regard to how its spending compares to what Congress appropriated.
In July, the Trump administration pushed a $9 billion rescissions package that Republicans led to passage. The cuts included $1.1 billion in funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the nonprofit that funds public radio and television stations. The nonprofit announced at the beginning of August that it would shut down, and local television and radio stations have been working to fill abrupt funding gaps.
Before Congress approved the cuts, lawmakers hadn’t approved a rescissions package pushed by the executive branch since 1999 under Bill Clinton’s presidency. Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama didn’t propose any rescissions during their terms.
On Thursday, Trump proposed another $4.9 billion in rescissions to the State Department and the US Agency for International Development.
Vought’s influence on government spending has raised alarms for some lawmakers
During the same meeting in July when Levin noted the plaque had returned to the dais, several lawmakers suggested Vought aims for the administration to have greater control over the appropriations process, citing a Politico article in which he said the process should be less bipartisan.
Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Maryland) said Vought “believes he is the first and final arbiter of how much is spent, and all of us ought to be concerned about that.”
During a Christian Science Monitor breakfast in July, reporters asked Vought if the White House would commit to following congressionally-approved spending packages and not using rescissions to change them later. Politico reported that “he simply said he would not.”
Politico reported that Vought acknowledged Congress has the power of the purse, yet he added: “It is one of the most constitutional foundational principles, but that power of the purse does not mean—It’s a ceiling. It is not a floor.”
Hoyer said of the budget director’s comments: “Vought believes that it is his decision, obviously the president’s decision, to decide exactly what we’re going to spend, and if we appropriate $100 for an item that we think is very important, and he wants to spend $10 on it, he believes that constitutionally is correct. If we believe that, I don’t want to be on this committee.”
DeLauro said Trump isn’t “running an appropriations bill and suggesting what we do, but it is Russ Vought, and it is because they want to decimate, eviscerate and end the appropriations committee.”
While working to move forward a HUD spending bill, lawmakers worried it could be undone later through rescissions
During a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on HUD’s spending bill in July, Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon) and others suggested future rescissions should go through the appropriations committees. Merkley proposed requiring that in HUD’s spending bill, but the committee voted against the idea.
“I do hope that if we get additional rescission packages from the president that go to the floor that they’ll go to this committee,” Merkley said during the hearing, “and we’ll consider them on a bipartisan basis.”
“It’s important we all remember that the principle of a deal is a deal,” said Sen. Patty Murray (D-Washington), vice chair of the committee. “That means that this committee should not let our bipartisan bills, written and voted on in this committee, be undone later by a partisan proposal written by the White House. That just seems to me common sense for this committee as a whole.”
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-New York) questioned “why we would allow anyone to take away our power” and pointed out that the Trump administration wants to pursue more rescissions.
“They’re going to target the things that were bipartisan in this bill because they don’t share the concerns that we have for our constituents,” she said. “They don’t go back to our states every weekend. They don’t talk to people that are suffering.”
Rescissions should go through the appropriations committees, “because what happens politically,” Gillibrand said, “is when the president says, ‘I want you to cut all this money from here, here, here and here,’ sometimes people don’t want to stand up to the president if they are the party in power. They just choose not to do that. That’s not a fight they want to do and it undermines us. It takes away our whole job.”
Contact Streetlight editor Mollie Bryant at 405-990-0988 or bryant@streetlightnews.org. Follow her reporting on Bluesky or by joining our newsletter.
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