Well, the “abuse” hinges on delaying Ukraine payments more than 45 days. Schiff’s reaction was “your 45 days are up, ergo you’re abusing your power” when the law actually says “after 45 days of delays, the Comptroller General may give Congress 25 days’ notice that civil suit will be brought compelling payments” (which presumably will rise to SCOTUS level if it’s impeachment-level serious).
I still maintain that a clear reading of the law in this case shows that 45 days is a statutory time limit forced on Congress to take action after the President decides NOT to spend the money already budgeted or allocated; time for the House to either re-allocate the money, to tell the President to spend it as originally allocated, or to just to decide not to spend it at all. The law is quite clear.
It’s part of a rescission law governing cancelling a budgeted or allocated amount of spending, and it does not mandate that the president has to spend ANYTHING within 45 calendar days of Congress passing a budget or an allocation for spending. That is just not in fact fiscally possible in many, or even most cases. The Office of Management and Budget states that even normal spending can take up to four to six weeks and sometimes longer to pay normal invoices. Six weeks is 42 days. If we are taking business days, it’s even longer. That’s your government at work.
There are times when the government treasury just literally does not have the funds for mandated spending, or, for example, during times when the government is shut down due to budget impasses. The deadline for spending budgeted funds is September 30 each Federal Fiscal year. Deadlines on spending resolutions when we lack a budget may vary on the timelines for each, but they are usually not a specific number of calendar days.
Calendar days are reserved for taking specific actions to set things in motion, not for spending, such as the “DNI has seven calendar days to consider. . . “. Calendar days cannot take into account holidays when financial institutions are closed and financial instruments such as letters of credit cannot be presented or cashed, government offices are closed, etc.
The statute where this 45 days is being cited has verbiage that accounts for time when Congress is not in session, a change in Congresses occurs within the 45 days, etc., setting the beginning of the 45 days to the next Congressional session, etc. So it is obviously NOT a time limitation on the President to spend any allocated funding, but most certainly referring to a limitation on Congressional actions. Given the way Congress works, even this is wishful thinking. I’d bet they’d just waive the rules and go about business as usual.
In fact, this Military Aid for Ukraine was in the budget passed back in SEPTEMBER 2018 as part of the new fiscal budget for 2019! Congress was still adding provisions to it in December by adding an additional $10 million more for Ukraine’s Navy.
It had taken until late May for the Pentagon to clear the Ukraine Military procurement procedures of corruption to OK the transfers. That’s over 240 days delay in spending those funds right there. . . 45 days is a small blip in comparison.
If there is a 45 day spending requirement, when did this calendar start shedding day pages? October 1 when the budget went into effect? Late April when the bulk of Federal income tax payments come in? Late May, when the Pentagon finished its long awaited clearing of the corruption in Ukraine military procurement? If so, why? June 3rd? When the OMB decided they might be ready? Also, if so why? If not any of them, then when?
It’s the PRESIDENT who is charged with executing the spending of funds, not these 2.5 million bureaucrats who are employed merely to help him execute his duties, and it is certainly not Congress.
The news media and Impeachment proponents are obfuscating this in an attempt to smear the facts all over the place, to make it seem the President did something wrong.
The ONLY time limit on funding aid to Ukraine was the end of the current Federal 2019 Fiscal year, September 30, and the current spending resolution, with a fudge factor for cutting checks and transmission of letters of credit of about three to four weeks.
There simply is no 45 day requirement in budget spending as some bloviators are claiming. I’ve been looking. I can’t find it. If it existed it would mean we’d have to blow through an entire fiscal year’s budget in six weeks or so. Remember, the OMB says it takes four to six weeks to run paper work through on normal spending allocations. . . That’s why they claimed they needed a special act of Congress to make sure they could still get it done by the end of the fiscal year when Trump lifted the hold on September 11th. . . all of that paper work should have been ready and waiting to go on the expectation of release. Instead we got. . . “We have get started right now! OH, we don’t have enough time to get it done!” the resistance bureaucrats screamed. “We can’t do our jobs! We are incompetent!”
If there were a 45 day spending requirement, then all these department heads who have money left in their department’s accounts would not be scrambling at the end of the fiscal years to spend everything left.
The fact they do is a well known due to ZERO BASE BUDGETING, because if they don’t spend it, what is left over must be returned to the treasury. . . And their departments will start with a lower base in the next budget if they have NOT SPENT WHAT WAS ALLOCATED!
The ONLY time there is a time speed limit on spending is when Congress passes an emergency declaration for that spending they are ordering, and even that has practical fiscal limitations on how fast it can be spent. There was no emergency declaration that I can find for the Ukrainian aid. It was just part of normal budget allocations.
The only compulsion I can find is that if Congress does not act to actually Rescind the spending, then the Comptroller is empowered by the act to bring suit under the theory that Congress, by not acting, intends for the funds to be spent as originally budgeted, allocated, and thus may bring suit against the President in Federal Court within 25 days to compel the expenditure, which gives the President an opportunity to defend why he is not so expending the funds before a court. That is the only remedy. Congress can, of course, ACT prior to the 45 days and do the same legislatively, or pass a new spending bill, which the POTUS could veto.