The New York Times reports:

A top Senate Republican on Thursday accused President Trump of illegally refusing to spend $2.9 billion approved by Congress, teaming with Democrats in an early salvo in the simmering struggle between Congress and the White House over which has the ultimate power over federal spending.

Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine and the chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee, initiated a letter to the White House, signed by Senator Patty Murray of Washington, the panel’s senior Democrat, asserting that the administration had violated the six-month spending law approved by Congress earlier this month.

They pointed to a memo Mr. Trump had sent to Congress on Monday that declared that only a portion of the $12.4 billion designated as emergency funding in the legislation would actually be spent, “because I do not concur that the added spending is truly for emergency needs.”

The appropriators vigorously contested that assertion, arguing that the law requires the administration to spend all emergency money or none of it, and does not allow the president to decide for himself what money to spend and what not to.

“Just as the president does not have a line-item veto, he does not have the ability to pick and choose which emergency spending to designate,” the letter said.

They noted that the Trump administration’s interpretation of federal budget law was at odds with how presidents of both parties had viewed it for two decades.

“It is incumbent on all of us to follow the law as written — not as we would like it to be,” Ms. Collins and Ms. Murray wrote. [Continue reading…]