{"id":42703,"date":"2025-05-25T10:19:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-25T15:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=42703"},"modified":"2025-05-25T22:20:26","modified_gmt":"2025-05-26T03:20:26","slug":"trump-is-taking-a-wrecking-ball-to-the-separation-of-powers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=42703","title":{"rendered":"Trump is taking a wrecking ball to the separation of powers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In mid-May, the Department of Government Efficiency \u2014 which was established by an executive order, does not have the statutory authority of a government department or agency, is not funded by Congress and claims to not be subject to legislative oversight \u2014 tried to embed<\/u><\/a> a team in the Government Accounting Office. The GAO helps Congress audit government spending to identify waste, fraud and mismanagement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Officials of the GAO, a legislative branch agency currently investigating more than three dozen allegations that the Trump administration illegally withheld congressionally authorized funds, refused. The GAO \u201cis not subject to executive orders,\u201d a spokeswoman added<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Faced with the same demand, officials of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting said no as well, citing a statute stipulating that it \u201cwill not be an agency or establishment of the United States government.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nonetheless, a staff member of DOGE reportedly declared<\/u><\/a> that his \u201cdepartment\u201d intended to investigate \u201cevery institute or agency that has congressional monies appropriated to it,\u201d including private nonprofits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The distribution of power into three separate, coequal branches of the federal government is a foundational principle of American democracy. The Constitution authorizes Congress \u201cto lay and collect taxes, duties,\u201d including tariffs, and approve government spending. Congressional authority in these areas was reinforced in 1974 by a law<\/u><\/a> prohibiting the executive branch from impounding funds. The Constitution says the president \u201cshall take care that the laws be faithfully executed\u201d and that the judiciary shall interpret them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Any assault on the separation of powers should concern all Americans \u2014 especially conservatives, who have in the past railed against the augmentation of executive branch power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although reducing the deficit is certainly a reasonable goal, the slapdash, sledgehammer cuts to existing programs as outlined in executive orders or specified by DOGE and implemented by administration officials without congressional approval, are certain to harm many, many people in the U.S. and abroad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the last four months, the Trump administration has frozen, canceled, clawed back and impounded<\/u><\/a> $430 billion approved by Congress. Affected programs include research into cancer, diabetes and dementia; relief for states recovering from natural disasters; early childhood education; and repairing, replacing and building infrastructure such as roads, bridges, airports, sea ports and public transit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In April, the National Science Foundation terminated 1,040 grants<\/u><\/a>, totaling $739 million. The NSF was then ordered to freeze funding on all grants until further notice, amid a vague new requirement that they be \u201cin alignment with agency policies.\u201d To date, the NSF has received only a quarter of the money Congress appropriated for the fiscal year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Between Feb. 28 and Apr. 8, the National Institutes of Health terminated<\/u><\/a> 694 grants, totaling $1.8 billion. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which is tasked, among other functions, with developing vaccines for potential pandemics, experienced the biggest reduction, $506 million. These cuts affected red states<\/u><\/a> as well as blue states, with $100 million at risk in Arkansas, for example, much of it allocated to work on pediatric asthma at Children\u2019s Hospital in Little Rock and research on cancer, ALS and Alzheimer\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A 50 percent reduction in federal government funding for science, according to one study, would reduce U.S. GDP by a whopping 7.6 percent. Even if the cuts are smaller, first-rate researchers are likely to seek positions in other countries. China may well overtake America as the global leader in basic and applied science, medicine, artificial intelligence and engineering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, DOGE and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have eliminated<\/u><\/a> 83 percent of the programs administered by the U.S. Agency for International Development, which was established by Congress some 60 years ago. The HIV\/AIDS relief program known as PEPFAR was the largest of them. Established in 2003 by President George W. Bush and renewed<\/u><\/a> by Congress four times \u2014 most recently (along with USAID) in the 2025 continuing resolution that avoided a government shutdown \u2014 PEPFAR has been credited with saving 26 million lives and making it possible for 7.8 million children to be born.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A stop-work order initially froze all PEPFAR programs and services. On Feb. 1, PEPFAR received a limited waiver to conduct \u201clife-saving HIV services,\u201d but since thousands of HIV workers had been fired, community outreach terminated, nonprofit organizations not paid and drug supply chains disrupted, 71 percent of prevention and treatment services were not restored. Ending PEPFAR, the Kaiser Family Foundation estimates, will result in 3 million additional HIV-related deaths in 26 countries by 2030.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In March, Federal Judge Amir Ali declared that the Trump administration lacked the authority to freeze funding for USAID. \u201cThe constitutional power over whether to spend foreign aid is not the President\u2019s own,\u201d the judge declared<\/u><\/a>, \u201cand it is Congress\u2019 own.\u201d He dismissed the \u201cunbridled view of executive power that the Supreme Court has consistently rejected.\u201d The Trump administration, however, has not revived the thousands of canceled contracts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lawsuits to reinstate USAID have been filed, but it is likely too late to save the agency, which now has a skeletal staff and is under the direct supervision of the State Department. And it will be difficult to restore American \u201csoft power\u201d in developing countries, where China has increased its foreign aid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the Trump administration continues to bypass, ignore and essentially overrule Congress, Republicans in the Senate and House remain missing in action. Asked why the congressional DOGE caucus hasn\u2019t met in months \u2014 a question that applies as well to asserting its responsibility over the levying of tariffs \u2014 Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas) gave a \u201ccan\u2019t walk while chewing gum\u201d excuse<\/u><\/a>. \u201cWe\u2019re so damn busy,\u201d he said, \u201cwith our own great, great big bill.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Until and unless the Republicans who control Congress take affirmative steps to reclaim their rightful role in the separation of powers, the U.S. will continue to move away from the democratic constitutional order that has served us well for a long, long time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

thehill<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In mid-May, the Department of Government Efficiency \u2014 which was established by an executive order, does not have the statutory authority of a government department or agency, is not funded by Congress and claims to not be subject to legislative oversight \u2014 tried to embed a team in the Government Accounting Office. The GAO helps Congress audit […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":42704,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[4430,33409,1230],"class_list":["post-42703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-destruction","tag-separation-of-powers","tag-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42703"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42703\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42705,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42703\/revisions\/42705"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/42704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}