Trump Has Been Making Major Funding Decisions Without Congress

President Donald Trump is taking control of America’s bank account.

As the government shutdown hits week four and Congress is stuck in a budget stalemate, Trump has been pushing for more power under the executive branch.

The president has made major budget and policy decisions without waiting for the customary legislative approval: igniting a new wave of federal worker firings, greenlighting military and law enforcement pay during the shutdown, and beginning construction on a 90,000-square-foot ballroom.

The strategy has struck a nerve with lawmakers from both parties because, by law, Congress holds constitutional control over America’s money.

Business Insider spoke with legal scholars and policy analysts about Trump’s latest economic moves and what they mean for the US checks-and-balances system.

“That power of the purse is supposed to be the top card because it means that, more or less, anything the president can do Congress gets to veto by not paying for it,” said Walter Olson, a senior fellow at the right-leaning Cato Institute. “But if the president can get around that, then he no longer has to listen.”

Trump has been making major funding decisions without Congress

The president has made a mark on the global economy during his second term. His rapidly changing trade policies have moved markets, he fired the nonpartisan head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics after a disappointing July jobs report, and he has repeatedly butted heads with Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell over interest rates.

When Business Insider spoke with policy analysts about whether the president’s actions have historical precedent — or a legal basis — the verdict was murky. For most government spending, Congress outlines what are called “appropriations,” very specific line items on when and how each dollar should be spent. Any attempt to change those appropriations typically requires legislative approval, a step of the process that Trump has been bypassing.

“This is Democrats’ disgusting playbook: inflict maximum pain on Americans to cling to power, the administration wrote in an October 22 statement. “While President Trump takes decisive action to ensure service members get paid and critical nutrition assistance programs for low-income women and children remain funded, unhinged Democrats are doing anything they can to stop him.”

Take Trump’s decision to pay the military and select law enforcement during the shutdown. Without a vote in Congress, the White House sent an October 17 memo stating that “In such a dire circumstance as this, where there is no other appropriation providing for payment of military salaries, and where failure to pay our troops directly undercuts the effectiveness of other appropriations, The President may, as Commander in Chief, direct that such appropriations be used to cover military salaries.”

That money is likely coming from the Pentagon’s standard research and development budget, but the administration did not provide more information on what money is specifically being used or if it had been bookmarked for a purpose other than stopgap military pay.

Most other federal workers — like government contractors and agency staff — will not receive a paycheck until the government reopens. Troop pay was preapproved by Congress in past shutdowns, and members of Congress on both sides of the aisle showed a willingness to pay troops this time around. On October 24, the Pentagon said it received an anonymous $130 million check directed toward military pay, which the president said came from “a friend of mine.”

“It’s a particularly egregious choice when you have the option to do the legal thing and Congress has signaled that it’s willing to do the legal thing,” said Devin O’Connor, a senior fellow at the left-leaning Center for Budget and Policy Priorities and former Office of Management and Budget official, adding, “Conceptually, it opens up an enormously dark space.”

The White House also called for federal law enforcement members, such as deportation officers, air marshals, border patrol, and Secret Service, to receive “super checks” for overtime hours and missed pay during the shutdown. The Department of Homeland Security confirmed to Business Insider that this money is coming from DHS allocations in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, a law that allocates billions toward “activities in support of the Department of Homeland Security’s mission to safeguard the borders of the United States” between 2025 and 2029.

“There are ways in which what they’re doing on law enforcement could be totally kosher, or maybe is more of a stretch, or they could just be doing something super illegal,” O’Connor said. “We don’t actually know because we don’t have their justification.”

In other money moves, the Trump administration announced in October that it’s funneling $300 million in tariff revenue to fund the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program during the shutdown.

Sam Berger, a senior fellow at CBPP and former OMB official, said the money that is being used in this case is probably revenue collected in 2024 that was initially allocated for Children’s Nutrition Programs, like school lunches.

“I would think of that as an example of them misrepresenting what they’re doing for political purposes,” Berger said, but it’s likely still legitimate for Trump to use this money because “there’s an existing transfer authority” to spend it on nutrition programs.

Berger also referred to Trump’s ballroom renovation of the East Wing. Congress does not have to approve changes to the White House, but major construction projects often require federal funding — which is granted by the legislature.

To fund the roughly $250 million project, the president is relying on money from a personal legal settlement with YouTube, along with potential donations from major company leaders and his own funds: “The White House Ballroom is being privately funded by many generous Patriots, Great American Companies, and, yours truly,” he wrote in an October 20 Truth Social post. Top execs at companies like Blackstone, Palantir, Lockheed Martin, and OpenAI are also on the guest list for an upcoming donor dinner at the White House.

The policy analysts Business Insider spoke with additionally pointed toward federal funding cuts for public health, nonprofits, and benefit programs in recent months. Congressional appropriations go both ways, they said. Opting not to spend money that lawmakers have already budgeted for could also be an example of executive overreach.

They mentioned legal precedents like the Impoundment Control Act and the Anti-Deficiency Act that are intended to prevent government overspending and outline specific situations in which the president could override a funding appropriation. Examples of Trump’s impounding funds include his previous cancellations of foreign aid for USAID or the cancellation of federal infrastructure funding for New York City.

It’s not unheard of for a president to be at odds with Congress or make major funding decisions in emergency cases, though the analysts said the level of unilateral moves by Trump is uncharted territory and bigger than his first term.

Congress can update funding rules or seek legal recourse

If Congress wants to take back its purse strings, there are a few things lawmakers can do.

Berger and O’Connor published an analysis last week about what they call “guardrails,” including a proposal to Congress that would require at least 60 Senate votes to approve any funding cuts to federal or grant programs, alongside making it more difficult for the executive branch to unilaterally freeze grants and contracts.

Olson said Congress is “obliged to uphold the Constitution and step forward to say, ‘Mr. President, you’re not obeying the law.’ Or, in this case, spending outside of appropriations.”

It’s also possible for lawmakers and organizations to sue the president over funding decisions or executive overreach, but it’s unlikely that they would see an outcome any time soon because of how long the legal process takes. And Congress won’t be able to move forward until it decides on a temporary budget to reopen the government.

“The problem is that the courts are not particularly set up to prevent illegality here, they’re set up to declare reality happened after the fact,” O’Connor said. “When you have funding decisions, getting a decision two years after the fact that they should have spent funds in some way is not particularly helpful. Because the damage has been done.”