General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: BREAKING: Rep Adam Smith just denied DoD ability to reprogram $1B in counter drug $ for Border Wall [View all]FBaggins
(26,732 posts)Congress has a habit of arrogating executive authority in some bills... where they approve a certain budget but then put in the bill that the agency (or whatever) has to come back to Congress periodically for approval to spend it. Something like that appears in hundreds of bills and they're virtually always unconstitutional (and are ruled as such whenever they're challenged). They're frequently the subject of "signing statements" (where the President signs the bill but then says he's going to ignore the unconstitutional parts.
So we keep up this dance. Congress pretends that they have the power to compel the executive branch to show up at a hearing and beg for approval for things that have already been approved... and the executive shows up and pretends that it's just an advisory meeting, not a request for approval.
In this case, the executive branch is correct.
Congress could remove the budget flexibility going forward, but only if they can get the Senate to go along and the President to sign it. They can't "reject" this "request". The career military members who were there clearly understood that Trump potentially puts them in a position to have far less flexibility in future years... but they're going to follow orders.