Contribution
This is political commentary by a public-administration scholar. It makes three moves. It gives a four-point account of how the Speaker, not only the President, chose the path that weakens Congress. It draws a legal line: pay during a lapse needs a named appropriation. And it argues that the practice (routine shutdowns plus selective presidential ending of them) leaves Congress only “the right to not appropriate any money” (Glassman, quoted).
Key insight
A shutdown the President can end selectively, for the parts of government he likes, is not a check on him. It transfers appropriations power to him. The Speaker who helps that happen is failing his own institution, whatever the policy outcome.
Assumptions
These are premises and authorities.
- Congress controls “duration, amount, and purpose” of spending. Matt Glassman is quoted: purpose restrictions are “the most bedrock feature of appropriations”. Josh Chafetz is quoted: unilateral spending is “anti-constitutional”, with Plutarch’s Caesar and the tribune Metellus as the example.
- ICE and CBP have multi-year funding under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, so their staff are lawfully paid during the lapse (asserted; not checked here).
- Shutdowns themselves are an artefact of a 1980 executive interpretation of the Antideficiency Act (“of 1870”). The post links a Washington Post history piece and a Bonica post; neither was read.
- Evidence of partisan fund steering is taken from linked NYT and Politico reporting and from the author’s earlier posts (not read).
Key results
What the post argues or reports, attributed:
- Timeline (the author’s). Trump urged the Senate to keep DHS closed and demanded passage of the SAVE Act. Trump declared he would pay TSA employees and issued a memo “the next day” naming no legal means, while “a record 12% of TSA agents called in sick”. The Senate passed a bill funding DHS except ICE and CBP “at 2.20 am Friday” and recessed. Johnson did not bring it to a vote; the House passed a Trump-backed full-DHS bill to late May and recessed.
- The memo (checked). Dated 27 March 2026, it directs DHS and OMB “to use funds that have a reasonable and logical nexus to TSA operations to provide TSA employees with the compensation and benefits that would have accrued … consistent with applicable law, including 31 U.S.C. 1301(a)”. The post quotes the first clause accurately.
- The choice. “A) Reclaim the power of the purse … B) Allow the President not only to dictate appropriations, but also to engage in a potentially illegal scheme … Johnson chose B.”
- Precedent. Paying the military during the previous shutdown went unchallenged and “set a precedent”. “If a President can point to any unspent funds for an agency, he can reappropriate it.”
- Remedy (preference only). Congress should amend the Antideficiency Act rather than leave shutdowns to executive interpretation.
Claims
| id | claim | strength | support |
|---|---|---|---|
| C1 | The TSA memo names no appropriation source | primary evidence; confirmed | memo text: “funds that have a reasonable and logical nexus to TSA operations”; it cites 31 U.S.C. 1301(a) but no account |
| C2 | Paying TSA staff that way is likely illegal | informal argument plus quoted expert opinion | Glassman, Chafetz; no GAO or OLC opinion cited |
| C3 | ICE and CBP are funded for multiple years by the OBBBA, so their pay is lawful | assertion | not sourced in the post; unverified here |
| C4 | The Senate bill “would pass handily in the House” | assertion (counterfactual) | none |
| C5 | A record 12% of TSA agents called in sick | news-derived assertion | no link at that point; the memo says only “record rates” |
| C6 | The administration steers money away from Democratic-led states | secondary evidence | links to NYT, Politico and the author’s own earlier posts (not read) |
| C7 | Shutdowns stem from a 1980 legal interpretation of the Antideficiency Act | secondary source | linked Washington Post history piece (not read) |
| C8 | Johnson chose to let the President dictate appropriations | the author’s interpretation of the events in the timeline | the timeline above |
Concepts
- power of the purse: here, Congress’s control of the amount, duration and purpose of spending, as against impoundment (not spending appropriated funds) and unappropriated spending.
- purpose restriction: the rule, codified at 31 U.S.C. 1301(a), that appropriations be spent only for the objects for which they were made.
- personalist regime: the author’s term for government organised around the President’s personal authority. It is used, not defined.
Connections
It belongs to a series of posts by Moynihan and allied commentators on impoundment and shutdown politics in 2025–26. It links Adam Bonica’s post on why US government shutdowns happen, and Bonica is the author of c07. It quotes Glassman’s “appropos of nothing” post and a Bluesky post by Chafetz.
Bearing on the record
It carries nothing for ML practice and no instruction for the Anthology of the SOTA. In this record it is commentary on US fiscal-constitutional practice. For that subject the memo, the bills and any GAO or OLC opinions are the citable primary sources. This post is the argument about what they mean.
Limitations
- It is advocacy with an explicit viewpoint. The alternatives open to Johnson are framed by the author as a binary choice.
- The most striking factual detail (12% sick-call rate) is unsourced in the text, and the memo does not carry it.
- The post was edited after publication (the 3 April NYT link), and it does not flag the edit.
- The legal claim (C2) rests on scholars’ opinions. The post cites no GAO decision or court ruling on this memo, and none may yet have existed.
- It does not engage the memo’s own invocation of §1301(a), which is the obvious textual reply to its argument.
Open questions
- What appropriation did DHS actually use to pay TSA staff, and did GAO or a court rule on it? That would settle C2.
- Did Congress respond by amending the Antideficiency Act or asserting purpose limits? Nothing in the post answers this.
Corrections to the seeded skim
- The version read is not the version of 28 March. The post says Trump “later claimed the power to pay all DHS agents affected by the shutdown”, and links an NYT story dated 3 April 2026. So the text was edited at least six days after its datePublished. The dossier’s timeline treats the text as of 28 March.
- The dossier says the memo was “on paying TSA employees” and does not “nam[e] a legal appropriation source”. That is accurate, but the dossier misses that the memo does cite law. It directs payment “consistent with applicable law, including 31 U.S.C. 1301(a)”, which is the purpose statute Moynihan’s argument turns on. The memo names no account, which is Moynihan’s point. The post does not mention that the memo invokes §1301(a).
- The post does not say the memo reports a “record 12% TSA sick-call rate”. The 12% figure is the post’s own, from unnamed reporting. The memo says only that officers “call out sick at record rates”, that “nearly 500” had left, and that waits reached “three or more hours”. The dossier’s timeline runs the two together.
- Missing from the dossier: the concession that carries the argument. “It’s not that the President cannot pay federal employees during a shutdown, but he has to have a clear appropriations source.” Moynihan also concedes that redirecting DHS money to non-ICE/CBP work “might be considered a win for Democrats”. The objection is to precedent, not outcome.
- Missing from the dossier: the prior-precedent argument (Trump’s claim, in the previous shutdown, to pay the military), and Moynihan’s evidence of partisan steering of funds (links on contracts, infrastructure, safety-net and disaster aid).