Trump plans an audacious grab for congressional ‘power of the purse’

Trump declared that if Newsom did not divert more of the state’s limited water supply, “we won’t give him money to put out all his fires. And if we don’t give him the money to put out his fires, he’s got problems.”

This is the cudgel of a monarch or heartless despot, precisely why the Founders invested the people’s representatives in Congress — not the president — with the “power of the purse.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/01/17/trump-impoundment-congress-power-grab/