Imperial presidency? Congress says, yes, please
Today's Senate vote seems like a normal spending spat. But Republicans are looking to hand Trump - and all future presidents - massive power.
Okay, this one is really going seem boring at first, but bear with me. It heats up as it goes along. Today I want to talk about the federal budget and federal spending.
You might have been hearing over the last few days that Congress faces a deadline today. It has to pass a spending bill, or the government runs out of its authority to spend money at all and has to shut down.
In fact, this bill might have passed - or not passed - by the time you watch this.
Technically this spending bill is what's called a "continuing resolution", or CR. It's an extension of virtually all of the existing spending plan from Biden's administration. It's the spending plan that the country has already been operating under.
This extension is only temporary. It's intended to let the government limp along until September, when the country's fiscal year ends. Presumably, by then, they swear, pinky promise, they'll have a real, honest-to-goodness brand new budget negotiated between Congressional Republicans and Democrats and President Trump.
This might all sound relatively normal on its face - at least nowadays. Given how the spirit of compromise has all but died in our partisan times, this has become a relatively normal, if convoluted, way Washington has worked in recent years.
However, there's a twist.
Normally Congressional spending plans include fairly detailed instructions on how the money is to be spent. But this time, those instructions were left out - on purpose.
When the Republican-controlled House passed their version of the bill - almost completely along party lines - they wanted to give the Trump administration maximum authority to spend as it sees fit, without Congress' input.
That lets the Trump administration make the decisions on how to spend taxpayer money - shifting it around or perhaps not spending all of it at all. In essence, Congress' plan merely becomes a ceiling on spending and little else. All of the rest of that power is handed to the president.
And you see, that's the real point here. This temporary spending bill isn't really about spending. It isn't really about any particular policy directly. It's not about immigration or inflation or DEI or Medicaid or Medicare or Social Security.
Instead, it's about breaking the Constitution - about fundamentally changing the nature and mechanics of the republic.
Famously, Congress has what's called "the power of the purse". It is a separate power center from the presidency, whose main charge is controlling what and how much in taxes are collected and how those are deployed.
But now Congress is formally ceding a large portion of that main power over to the presidency.
Co-presidents Trump and Musk had already been seizing this power illegally, as numerous courts have decided now. Most famously, unilaterally shutting down USAID, but there are other examples.
And this is part of a larger plan. Maybe at some point you heard of Project 2025.
Honestly, it's like something out of a low-budget spy movie. But it's real.
They've planned this for years. It's a stated goal.
A little more specifically, Republicans want to give the president the power of impoundment. Back in the 70s, Nixon began trying to take over Congress' power by refusing to spend money according to the plan. But Congress pushed back and made it illegal to do impoundment.
Trump's buddies see that law as bad news and unconstitutional. So, they're looking to overturn it - maybe even ultimately looking to get a decision by the Supreme Court.
Now, at this moment, Democrats are split. Some argue that, if the government closes down, Trump would automatically get wide authority to decide what to spend money on. And if the shutdown went on long enough, Trump could lay off a bunch of people legally, which again, he has asserted the right to do, but courts are saying nope, not legal.
Other Democrats say he's already seized this power for himself, so why play along with further centralizing presidential power.
Republicans continue to march almost 100% in lockstep. In the US House, Republicans were able to pass their version of the bill along a simple majority vote. But due to the freaky rules in the Senate, Republicans need 60 votes to pass the spending plan there. They only have 53. So, they need Democrats. The pressure is on.
I should also mention that this bill also makes it harder to rein in tariff policy and Trump's various tariff wars. See, setting tariffs is not an inherent power of the presidency. It was delegated to presidents by Congress. And Congress could have decided at any point to end the tariffs using a simplified set of rules set in law. But now they're changing that, too, in this plan. Now, it'll be a legislative slog - because Republicans don't want to ever have to go anywhere near voting on Trump's tariffs.
Now, Republicans think they can get all of these Congressional powers back when it comes time to negotiate the next budget. I say that's delusional. They'll be just as cowed in the future by Trump/Musk, and in the meantime, this new precedent of Congress handing over its "power of the purse" will have been set.
It's like the January 6th pardons - another crack in our democracy. Those pardons set a precedent that opened the door to politicians having a legal way to use organized political violence. Attack in your politician's name, and later you get a pardon. Neat.
And now we'll have further expansion of the power of the presidency.
By the way, I should mention - if spending cuts are your thing - there's already a simplified legislative process for doing just that. It's called rescission. Congress could be working on a rescission package right now. And the ways the rules are written, it only takes a simple majority vote in the Senate. No Democrats needed.
But doesn't appear to be the point. It's about overthrowing conventions, altering the functioning of the Constitution, and consolidating presidential, one-man power.
To wrap up - a warning - Maybe you like all of this. Maybe you're getting your political wishlist fulfilled. Good on ya. But I wouldn't celebrate the further strengthening of what is often labeled the "imperial presidency" too much.
Because the next guy - and there will be a next guy - might not be as much to your liking. What's to stop that president - once all the checks and balances, both legal and customary and normal - have been removed?
And think about where that goes. When there's that much concentrated power at stake, political competition rapidly becomes a zero-sum, existential game.
You see this in countries all over the world. Seizure of the government's power becomes absolutely essential to your particular group's well-being.
And those kinds of conflicts do not end well.
Good luck, America.
Some supporting links
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/14/us/politics/trump-republicans-congress-power.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/03/14/trump-cr-power-government-spending-doge/