Replies

It is a power that is an implied part of executive authority; and in many laws, it is an explicit part of the law’s implementation clauses.

Nobody expect the House and Senate to vote on the contract for cleaning services for the NSA offices, for example. Someone working in the executive branch will be tasked with negotiating and signing that contract, and the contract may specify the pay of the workers, and now the contract will say that they expect the workers to be paid $10.10 an hour.

Unless the law authorizing a department explicitly says that no contract will REQUIRE any pay other than minimum wage, it probably is not illegal for the contract to call out a wage.

My guess is there is a law that requires that all executive branch contracts be negotiated in good faith, and to be as cheap as is possible for the government while meeting the requirements. But even that clause would not prevent this, the executive might argue that by paying a higher wage, the job will be done more efficiently, saving money.

There are a myriad of rules in federal contracting, and I doubt they all were specifically included in some legislature.

The sad truth is that no government can work if the executive is so untrustworthy and immoral that you would have to explicitly define everything they can and cannot do. Imagine a general who, before every troop movement, was required first to send a request back to the states so the congress could vote on whether they really want that particular platoon to go into a particular direction.

What stopped most presidents from doing this was collective outrage from the people, fueled by a press which was trying to be egalitarian, to keep government in check. There is no such press today, and frankly what the president could get away with is scary.

Although when a republican wins again, first I doubt the press will let them get away with anything, and second they are likely to be “good” and therefore not game the system or act improperly.