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Comment by Bluescreenbuddy | Hacker News Reader

You seem to have forgotten that the power of the purse is Congress.

Power of the purse rests with the House with consent from the Senate, but the execution of the purse is ultimately vested with the Executive.

Congress as the Legislative Branch has no authority to Execute.

Congress has passed laws requiring the executive branch to disperse money in a timely fashion, with a few limited exceptions. USAID was also created in response to a law, which requires the executive branch to perform these functions.

And? Congress can impeach the President if they feel the law isn't being executed. The law also extends nearly limitless benefit of doubt to the President when he is executing his Constitutional duties.

This feels like circular reasoning. In order to execute his (or her) Constitutional Duties, the President must execute laws faithfully. However, the President is extended limitless benefit of the doubt if he decides to not execute the laws put forth by Congress, which means he's not executing his Constitutional duties. So which one is it?

You may, unfortunately, thank the Supreme Court for that bit of circular reasoning, rather than GP. Executives since Nixon have been pushing the line that "if the president does it, it's not illegal", and they finally got a SCOTUS to accept it.

> The law also extends nearly limitless benefit of doubt to the President when he is executing his Constitutional duties.

It does not. In fact, limiting this benefit of the doubt has been a major goal of the conservative legal movement in recent years. If what you say was true then Biden would have had no trouble forgiving student loan debt and requiring generation shifting.

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