Trump blocks $4.9B in foreign aid Congress OK'd, using maneuver last seen nearly 50 years ago

[lostincalifornia]

"WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has told House Speaker Mike Johnson that he won't be spending $4.9 billion in congressionally approved foreign aid, effectively cutting the budget without going through the legislative branch.

Trump, who sent a letter to Johnson, R-La., on Thursday, is using what’s known as a pocket rescission — when a president submits a request to Congress to not spend approved funds toward the end of the fiscal year, so Congress cannot act on the request in a 45-day timeframe and the money goes unspent as a result. It's the first time in nearly 50 years a president has used one. The fiscal year draws to a close at the end of September.

The letter was posted Friday morning on the X account of the White House Office of Management and Budget. It said the funding would be cut from the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, an early target of Trump's efforts to cut foreign aid."

If the White House standardizes this move, the president could effectively bypass Congress on key spending choices and potentially throw into disarray efforts in the House and the Senate to keep the government funded when the next fiscal year starts in October."

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/trump-blocks-4-9b-foreign-135245116.html

If he can do crap like this, and no one can stop him, perhaps it is time to consider uniting with states against this garbage and secede from the union.

Did anyone sign up to be ruled by a dictator?

[msongs]

1. no big deal, congressional republicans are toady scum anyway nt

[lostincalifornia]

2. It is a big deal because it means we no longer follow the Constitution. It isn't worth the paper it was written on

if this happens.

[msongs]

5. per the article it sounds like this is not an illegal manouever just something done very rarely nt

[B.See]

3. The price a nation pays for mistakenly

believing Democracy WAS a given. That it was not necessary to safeguard it.

Democracy depends on the GOOD WILL of men and women.

Something Trump and MAGA know NOTHING ABOUT. A notion they DESPISE.

[lostincalifornia]

4. One tiny glimmer of hope when reading the comment on Yahoo.com from this article there is a lot of

push back against this garbage. In the past, yahoo comments were mostly inundated with right wing trump supporters, so something has seemed to change.

[no_hypocrisy]

6. My bet is that TSF didn't know about this maneuver until

SOTH Johnson told him about it.