{"id":48470,"date":"2025-10-13T19:55:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T00:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=48470"},"modified":"2025-10-14T02:42:32","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T07:42:32","slug":"trump-wants-to-pay-the-troops-without-congress-can-he-make-it-happen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=48470","title":{"rendered":"Trump wants to pay the troops without Congress. Can he make it happen?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

President Trump has directed the Pentagon to pay service members by utilizing previously appropriated funds during the ongoing government shutdown, seeking to sidestep gridlock in Congress. But is the move legal?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The move takes some pressure off<\/strong> House Speaker Mike Johnson\u2002<\/u><\/a>(R-La.), who was facing growing demands to call the House back to vote on Republican-sponsored legislation that would ensure troops are paid during the shutdown. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some Democrats and policy analysts say the move is likely illegal.<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Romina Boccia, the director of budget and entitlement policy at the libertarian Cato Institute, told The Hill on Monday that \u201ctechnically speaking, Congress can rescind unobligated balances and repurpose them<\/strong>,\u201d but \u201cfor the administration to repurpose funds unilaterally is likely illegal.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAn unobligated balance does not give the administration the right to use the money as it wishes<\/strong>,\u201d Boccia said. \u201cIf Congress wants to ensure that America\u2019s troops will be paid during the ongoing government shutdown, Congress should pass a bill that authorizes funding to pay the troops.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump announced the move on Truth Social after Johnson had teased executive action \u2014 just days before the Oct. 15 deadline when service members were set to start missing paychecks \u2014 writing that his administration has \u201cidentified funds to do this, and [Defense Secretary PetevHegseth] will use them to PAY OUR TROOPS<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Defense official said Saturday that the department identified \u201capproximately $8 billion<\/strong> of unobligated research development testing and evaluation funds (RDTE) from the prior fiscal year that will be used to issue mid-month paychecks to service members\u201d if the government is not reopened by Oct. 15. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.) was asked Sunday on CBS\u2019s \u201cFace the Nation\u201d whether the administration\u2019s plan was legal.<\/strong>  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWell, probably not.<\/strong> Again, we just had a little conversation about the White House\u2019s understanding of United States law, which is pretty tentative to say the best,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think to pay the military during a shutdown would require legislation; the Speaker of the House has taken that off the table<\/strong>,\u201d Himes added. \u201cSo, I mean, is Donald Trump going to say a bunch of stuff? Yes, he\u2019s going to say a bunch of stuff. But I don\u2019t see anything moving.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, there was little public pushback against the move<\/strong> Monday, and it\u2019s unclear if Democrats will try to stop a maneuver to pay military members, regardless of their views on its legality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Johnson has argued that the standalone military pay bill<\/strong>, which was introduced last month by Rep. Jen Kiggans (R-Va.), would allow Democrats to avoid accountability for their votes opposing the Republican proposal to fund the government at current levels through mid-November. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

thehill<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

President Trump has directed the Pentagon to pay service members by utilizing previously appropriated funds during the ongoing government shutdown, seeking to sidestep gridlock in Congress. But is the move legal? The move takes some pressure off House Speaker Mike Johnson\u2002(R-La.), who was facing growing demands to call the House back to vote on Republican-sponsored legislation that would […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":48471,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1153],"tags":[34924,1232,34925,1230],"class_list":["post-48470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-military","tag-absentee","tag-congress","tag-military-pay","tag-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48470","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=48470"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48470\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48472,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48470\/revisions\/48472"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/48471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}