https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_of_the_purse#United_Stat...
In the federal government of the United States, the power of the purse is vested in the Congress as laid down in the Constitution of the United States, Article I, Section 9, Clause 7 (the Appropriations Clause) and Article I, Section 8, Clause 1 (the Taxing and Spending Clause).
The power of the purse plays a critical role in the relationship of the United States Congress and the President of the United States, and has been the main historic tool by which Congress has limited executive power.
https://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/watch/not-confident-trump-...
Not confident Trump will prevail: Scholar on his attempts to take Congress' power of the purse Professor Deborah Pearlstein joins Morning Joe to discuss her column for the NYT outlining some of Trump’s actions implemented in his first few days in office and why she says Trump is hardly the first president to claim broad executive power, but the difference is not just the enormity of his claims, it's that the administration mostly doesn't try to craft legal justifications for its actions.
https://www.marketplace.org/2025/02/04/congress-president-tr...
How Congress — and not the president — controls how taxpayer money is spent
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/01/trump-e...
‘It’s an Illegal Executive Order. And It’s Stealing.’
But they're not spending; they're kind of doing the opposite of spending. And reducing waste is a previously known (for a long time) goal of theirs.
Second, as I’m sure you know, and are being deliberately obtuse about, the separation of powers doctrine, which has been upheld by SCOTUS; one example [0] is Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer. USAID is codified by law, regardless of its genesis, and as such, only Congress is able to revoke the law.
[0]: https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/usrep/usrep...
