President Donald Trump announced Thursday that a “friend” was donating $130,000,000 towards military pay during the shutdown. CNN and others reported Friday that the Pentagon had agreed to accept the “donation.”
According to Bloomberg, however, “federal law generally forbids individuals from making earmarked gifts to the government.”
The stunt — Trump is a master of them — is a pittance. In September, military personnel received $9,800,000,000. The anonymous donation is about 1.3% of that.
Nevertheless, there is perception that Trump is going the extra mile for the troops, fed by headlines like these: ‘Trump to Use $130 Million Donation to Help Pay Troops’ and ‘Trump is using $130 million from an anonymous donor to pay military salaries during the shutdown.’
And Don Moynihan notes that if Trump becomes the military “paymaster” — whether by moving 2025 fiscal dollars illegally into fiscal 2026 spending or by depositing this check into payroll — “Trump will demand their loyalty in return.”
The basic point is that military loyalty, via payments, has been both a historical means of regime consolidation and occasional societal collapse. Unpredictability around military pay should be seen as one more flashing siren of democratic risk that Americans never used to have to think about. The message that Trump is sending to the armed forces is “whatever instability comes, I have your back. You will be taken care of.”
The amount is meaningless — less than one day of salary. But the principle is important: once the armed services are paid by the oligarchs, they become a private militia, and we no longer have a country.
Regardless of how the Congress has turned its reins over to Trump, in the main, the Constitution grants Congress the power of the purse, not the executive or judicial branches.
Nor is there a federal line item veto, but Trump is acting as though he has that power as he withholds funds destained for “blue” states. That’s illegal … but this phrase has become a refrain. And it’s a refrain that news organizations tune out and almost never mention when they report ‘Trump did X.’
From Federal News Network (FNN):
[G]overnment agencies can spend federal funds only as appropriated by Congress and spending in the absence of appropriations is constitutionally prohibited…
“There’s no funding, there’s no fiscal 2026 military personnel checking accounts to put money into. As the law has always been understood prior to this week, you cannot pay fiscal 2026 personnel bills with fiscal 2025 money and the department doesn’t have any fiscal 2026 money,” a former defense official told Federal News Network.
David Super, the Carmack Waterhouse professor of law and economics at Georgetown University Law Center, told FNN that spending spending the donation without a Congressional appropriation “would be unconstitutional and a violation of the Anti-Deficiency Act.” Without an appropriation, “they can take the gift and hold it, but they can’t spend it without approval of Congress.”
Unconstitutional is another refrain where the mainstream news is tone deaf.
Known for gnawing at complex questions like a terrier with a bone. Digital evangelist, writer, teacher. Transplanted Southerner; teach newbies to ride motorcycles. @kegill (Twitter and Mastodon.social); wiredpen.com