Useful information
Prime News delivers timely, accurate news and insights on global events, politics, business, and technology
The Government Efficiency Department, the Trump Administration Cost Reduction Agency, headed by the multi -million dollar owner of the Elon Musk business, has put hundreds of federal licensed officials, obtained access to delicate federal payment systems and has taken the charge to federal shutter agencies.
The setback against Doge, as it is called, has been fast, since legislators and the public ask if Musk can reduce, restructure or eliminate authorized agencies and financed by Congress.
The leader of the Senate minority, Chuck Schumer, for New York, wrote about X on February 3: “A government in the shadow not chosen is carrying out a hostile acquisition of the federal government. Doge is not a true government agency. Doge has no authority to make spending decisions. Doge has no authority to close programs or ignore the federal law. You cannot allow Doge’s behavior to stand up. “
A not chosen shadow government is carrying out a hostile acquisition of the federal government.
Doge is not a true government agency.
Doge has no authority to make spending decisions.
Doge has no authority to close programs or ignore the federal law.
Doge’s behavior cannot be …– Chuck Schumer (@Senschumer) February 3, 2025
In a press conference the next day, Schumer said that the idea that Dege is illegally acting “is not debatable.” It is an indisputable fact. “
Officially, the courts will decide whether that is indisputable or not.
Because that has not yet happened, we ask the White House why the constitutional or legal authority Dogle is operating. The White House, in a statement, did not quote specific laws or constitutional provisions. He said: “Those who lead this mission with Elon Musk are doing it in full compliance with the federal law, appropriate security authorizations and as employees of the relevant agencies, not as advisors or external entities.”
Here, we take a closer look at Schumer’s statements about Dogs and his state and authority within the United States government.
Legal academics and government operations experts said that they see little in the Constitution or the Law of the United States to support the Executive Branch that acts only to revoke what Congress has authorized and financed.
“This is a question that has a very clear answer: only Congress and Congress have the authority to promulgate allocation measures,” said Michael Gerhardt, a law professor at the University of North Carolina. “The President has no unilateral authority to close an expense or instruments financed by Congress, without the authorization of Congress.”
Is Dege a true government agency?
Doge is not a conventional government agency; The Congress typically creates with a mission and a fixed amount of funds. On the contrary, the budget and Doge staff are largely a mystery.
The Trump administration established it by executive order on January 20, 2025.
The order said that an administrator informing the chief of the White House federal.
The White House has said that Musk is a “special employee of the government”, a government category of decades for someone who works 130 days or less for a year. Special government employees can be paid or not being paid, it is not clear to what of these categories Musk falls, and must provide financial revelations and comply with the ethics rules, which include not getting involved in matters in which they have interests Financial (Musk companies, including Spacex and Tesla., have received at least $ 15.4 billion in government contracts during the last decade, the New York Times reported).
Does Doge have the authority to make expense decisions?
The legal experts we interviewed had doubts that it is legal that Dege reduces the expense already appropriate by Congress and signed by the president.
A key obstacle to Doge is the Constitution, specifically article 1, which establishes Congress and enables the legislative branch for the appropriate funds. “Treasury money will not be extracted, but as a consequence of the appropriations made by law,” he says.
Beyond this, Congress has promulgated, and presidents have signed laws to reaffirm this principle. The 1974 Embediamment Control Law established a detailed process for what a president could and could not do when he disagreed with whether to spend money that Congress had approved.
That law says that if the executive branch wants to cancel the expense, it must propose a cut, known as a “termination.” The expense cannot stop for more than 45 days, since legislators consider cuts.
There are “important problems with conflict funds that have been authorized and appropriate if they do not follow the Embediamment Control Law,” said Bill Hoagland, senior vice president of the Bipartisan Policies Center and previously an assistant to the Republican Senate for a long time.
The Supreme Court in recent years has blocked the executive branch of exceeding its authorized authority with Congress, as with the offer of President Joe Biden to forgive the debt of student loans.
“If Congress told an department or agency that they could regulate, they can,” said Law professor at Stetson Louis J Virelli III. “If Congress did not, then they can’t.”
In general, the Office of Management and Budget and the Department of Justice evaluate executive orders, after a procedure, President John F Kennedy established in an executive order, said Steven Smith, a political scientist at Arizona State University. “This process provides a review of the proposed executive orders that include its constitutionality and legality,” said Smith. But given the speed of Trump’s order on Doge, which signed the day he swore, and the flow of personnel within the federal government, Smith said he has not seen any sign that Trump has followed this long -standing deliberative process .
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has demanded so much the right to confiscate funds, that is, refuse to spend money approved by Congress, and its reverse, legal experts said. By offering purchases to millions of federal employees, and those who accept to receive a payment until September 30, the Administration has committed to pay money that Congress has not yet been assigned. The current federal funds run out on March 14, but to promise a payment beyond that, “when there is no legal basis, it is illegal,” Virelli said.
Does Doge have the authority to close programs or ignore the federal law?
Legal experts also believe that the same legal justification: the allocation of the constitution of the power of the bag to Congress and subsequent laws) would prevent Doge from closing the entire agencies.
According to existing laws, such as the Packing Control Law, “there are certainly cases in which a president could stop private payments for particular reasons or for short periods,” said Frank or Bowman III, a law professor at the University of Missouri. “But it is absolutely clear that a president cannot close constitutionally, unilaterally, a completely created agency of Congress and all its programs.” Trump and their appointed are working to eliminate the independent status of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) by folding the agency to the State Department and committing to say goodbye to most of their employees, and Trump promised during his campaign To close the Department of Education. .
“The less sinister version of what the administration is doing is: ‘Let’s play this in court and see if we can obtain approval through the courts,” Virelli said. “If this ends as a series of demands in which the administration tries to expand its powers and the court classifies everything, that is not out of the limits of our constitutional democracy.”
But Musk and Dege can be moving so fast that the judicial branch would have difficulty stopping them even if the judges wanted, they said legal experts.
The administration could win if the lower courts “do not make decisions fast enough,” said Chris Edelson, an assistant government professor at the American University. He could also win if the judges decide to cancel the long -standing precedent, he said. “A Supreme Court that says that presidents are immune to criminal prosecution for ‘official acts'”, as the current court did in 2024, “they can also decide that presidents do not have to comply with other parts of the Constitution.”
Can Congress stop Doge if you wish? And will it do it?
Institutionally, Congress has more to lose, experts agree. But it is not helpless: Congress could approve a law that blocks Dux or at least some of its practices.
During the Watergate scandal of President Richard Nixon, when the Supreme Court moved strongly to restrict presidential power, “Congress backed the court moving to accuse him,” Edelson said. “I don’t see any evidence of the republican majorities of Congress that do that.”
For example, Senator Thom Tillis, North Carolina, acknowledged that some of Musk’s actions could be unconstitutional, but “no one should be discouraged about that,” notus told notus communication. “That faces the Constitution in the most strict sense … but it is not uncommon for presidents to flex a little about where they can spend and where they can stop spending.”
David M Drieen, a law professor at the University of Syracuse, said Tillis’s comparison is defective.
“There is no precedent to retain money in all areas due to broad politics disagreement with the law,” said Driesen. “That is a frontal attack on the legislative authority of Congress.”
If legislators do not challenge Doge, by approving new laws or going to court, they run the risk of losing the powers that Congress has had for two and a half centuries. Driesen and other legal experts said the judges could consider the lack of opposition of the congress as they decide cases on this issue.
“That should not matter at all a matter of constitutional law,” said Bowman, a law professor. “But I suspect that for some judges, silence could be somewhat weight.”
