There is appropriated and non appropriated funds. Appropriated is tax dollars, non appropriated is MWR money earned from vending machines and such. That money was put back into moral events.
The appropriated funds, tax dollars, could only be spent on what it was given to you for. If you get money for office furniture you couldn't spend it on weapons and vice versa. But, money could be moved around with the right authorization up the chain of command. Furniture money could be turned into office supply money pretty easily but to turn it into bullets and rifles it would require several steps up the chain of command and a clear explanation of why you didn't accurately project your spending levels in your budget to begin with.
So, to spend money on a wall that probably was never budgeted for would be considered a new mission requirement and would require approval probably at the source level - congress.
They are now 5 months into the current fiscal year and a lot of the money has been spent. Trying to find enough money to fund the wall then to turn around to Congress and ask to redistribute the money to a wall is a tough row to hoe.
You get funds that your subordinate units didn't spend for all sorts of reasons, like price changes or reorganization or whatever. But if you can get $10,000 from 10 subrdinate commands, then you might be getting some money. And if you have 10 midlevel commands that can scrounge up $100,000 each now you are talking some real money. But it ruins everyone's budget and leads to padded budgets in the future.
Not sure that helped. Appropriated money can be moved but it ain't easy.
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