"First, “vesting Congress with control over fiscal
matters” best “ensur[es] transparency and
accountability to the people.” Pet.App. 29a. The
Framers gave the “power over the purse” to the people’s “immediate representatives” in Congress.
THE FEDERALIST NO. 58, at 394 (J. Cooke ed. 1961)
(J. Madison). By making Congress “the guardian” of
“the common fund of all,” 2 Joseph Story,
COMMENTARIES ON THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED
STATES § 1348 (3d ed. 1858), the Framers protected
“the right of the people” to be “consulted upon the
disposal of the money” that the government has
taken from them to pay “[a]ll [its] expences,” 1 St.
George Tucker, BLACKSTONE’S COMMENTARIES App.,
at 362 (1803). The Appropriations Clause thus
restricts “the disbursing authority of the Executive
department,” Cincinnati Soap Co. v. United States,
301 U.S. 308, 321 (1937), “to secure regularity,
punctuality, and fidelity[] in the disbursements of
the public money,” Richmond, 496 U.S. at 427.
Second, “the separation of purse and sword” also
provides Congress, and in turn the people, with “an
indispensable check” on Executive action. Pet.App.
29a. The Framers recognized that giving the powers
of both “the sword and the purse” to a single Branch
“would furnish one body with all the means of
tyranny.” 2 THE DEBATES IN THE SEVERAL STATE
CONVENTIONS ON THE ADOPTION OF THE FEDERAL
CONSTITUTION, at 348-49 (J. Elliot 2d ed. 1891)
(A. Hamilton). To neutralize that threat, they vested
Congress with “the power over the purse,” so that it
would maintain “a controlling influence over the
executive power” by “hold[ing] at its own command
all the resources[] by which a chief magistrate could
make himself formidable.” 1 Story § 531. In short,
Congress could “unnerve the power of the sword by
striking down the arm which wields it.” Id. As
Madison emphasized, Congress’s power to deny “the supplies requisite for the support of government”
would be its “most compleat and effectual weapon”
for defeating “the overgrown prerogatives of the
other branches.” THE FEDERALIST NO. 58, at 394.
The Appropriations Clause thus is “a bulwark of the
Constitution’s separation of powers” that “is
particularly important as a restraint on Executive
Branch officers,” U.S. Dep’t of Navy v. FLRA,
665 F.3d 1339, 1347 (D.C. Cir. 2012) (Kavanaugh,
J.), because “[a]ny exercise of a power” validly held
by the Executive remains “limited by a valid
reservation of congressional control over funds”
needed to carry it out, Richmond, 496 U.S. at 425."
AI
