纵观美国历史，官员们都认识到国会拥有所谓的“钱包的权力”。在我们的宪法制度中，立法者拥有决定政府支出的唯一权力。它这样设计是有原因的：正如《纽约时报》编辑委员会去年秋天解释的那样，“金钱就是权力，这个国家的创始人担心，如果总统独自决定政府如何使用联邦财政部，他就会变成君主。”这是唐纳德·特朗普从未完全满意的模式。
Throughout American history, officials have recognized that Congress has what’s known as “the power of the purse.”In our constitutional system, it’s lawmakers who have the sole authority to dictate government spending. It’s designed this way for a reason: As the editorial board of The New York Times explained last fall, “Money is power, and the founders of this country feared that a president would turn into a monarch if he alone could dictate how the government uses the federal Treasury.”It’s a model that Donald Trump has never been altogether comfortable with.
事实上，总统白宫预算办公室负责人拉塞尔·沃特在去年初的参议院确认听证会上明确表示，他相信行政部门在联邦支出方面拥有巨大权力。他说的话显然是认真的。考虑一周内出现的三个例子。
Indeed, Russell Vought, who leads the president’s White House budget office, made clear during his Senate confirmation hearings early last year that he believes in an executive branch that has vast powers when it comes to federal spending. He clearly meant what he said. Consider three examples that emerged over the course of a week.
9月星期五25日，白宫决定单方面削减国会拨款的近10亿美元国内支出，实施一种被称为“口袋撤销”的策略。几天后，政府问责局重申了其立场，认为这是非法的，特朗普团队表示不在乎。
On Friday, Sept. 25 the White House decided unilaterally to cut nearly $1 billion in domestic spending appropriated by Congress, executing a tactic known as a “pocket rescission.”Days later, the Government Accountability Office reaffirmed its stance that this is illegal and Team Trump said it didn’t care.
9月星期三30特朗普政府将美国从欧洲和中东国家提供的数千万美元军事援助转用于奖励拉丁美洲的保守派政府。
On Wednesday, Sept. 30 the Trump administration redirected tens of millions of dollars in U.S. military assistance from European and Middle Eastern countries to reward conservative governments in Latin America.
据《华盛顿邮报》报道，美国国务院上个月通知国会，它打算这样做，当时众议院和参议院外交事务委员会的民主党高层搁置了资金转移问题。上周，政府决定无论如何都会继续执行其计划。
The Washington Post reported the State Department notified Congress of its intention to do so last month, at which point the top Democrats on the House and Senate foreign affairs committees placed a hold on the diversion of funds. Last week, the administration decided it would proceed with its plan anyway.
在周三给国务卿马尔科·卢比奥的一封信中，两位民主党议员，新罕布什尔州参议员珍妮·沙欣和纽约州众议员格雷戈里·米克斯写信给国务卿马尔科·卢比奥，称此举违反了有关资金去向的法定要求。特朗普团队显然也不在乎这一点。
In a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday, the two Democratic lawmakers, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire and Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York, wrote to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, describing the move as a violation of statutory requirements about where the money could go. Team Trump apparently didn’t care about this, either.
10月2日星期五，《泰晤士报》报道称，联邦研究资金的最大来源之一国家科学基金会扣留了国会在过去一年中打算用于研究的14亿美元，这是为了绕过国会而厚颜无耻地努力的一部分。
On Friday, Oct. 2 the Times reported that the National Science Foundation, one of the biggest sources of federal research funding, withheld $1.4 billion that Congress had intended for research over the course of the past year as part of a brazen effort to circumvent Congress.
众议员科学、空间和技术委员会民主党领袖、加利福尼亚州的佐伊·洛夫格伦（Zoe Lofgren）表示：“这笔钱应该按照国会的意图发放，但本质上，他们忽视了国会的所作所为。”或者更重要的是，他们忽视了国会的所作所为。
Rep. Zoe Lofgren of California, the top Democrat on the Science, Space and Technology Committee, said, “The money should be granted as Congress intended, and essentially, they’re ignoring what Congress did.”Or more to the point, they’re ignoring what Congress did .
就连白宫由纳税人资助的宣传竞选广告也是更广泛现象的一个例子：国会将这笔钱专门分配给国土安全部，而特朗普团队决定将这笔钱花在一个非常不同的优先事项上。
Even the White House’s taxpayer-financed propagandistic campaign ads are an example of the broader phenomenon: Congress allocated this money specifically for the Department of Homeland Security, and Team Trump decided to spend the funds on a very different kind of priority.
我们在这里面临的是一场明显的权力争夺，白宫一再试图从国会山手中夺取对国家钱袋的更大控制权。
What we’re dealing with here is an obvious power-grab, with the White House repeatedly trying to wrest greater control over the nation’s purse strings from Capitol Hill.
但这也象征着更广泛的独裁主义推动，旨在将基本政府权力集中在一个人手中。正如《泰晤士报》贾梅勒·布伊上周在一篇专栏文章中总结道：“这对美国体系基本结构的颠覆是怎么形容的。钱包的权力至关重要--它赋予国会对政府整个运作的最终权力。一个拥有这种权力的总统可以通过拒绝花费拨款来有效地取消任何法律或废除任何他不喜欢的机构。”
But it’s also emblematic of a broader authoritarian push that intends to concentrate a foundational governmental power in the hands of one individual. As the Times’Jamelle Bouie summarized in a column last week, “It is difficult to overstate the way this subverts the basic structure of the American system. The power of the purse is paramount — it gives Congress ultimate authority over the entire operation of government. A president who wields this power is a president who can effectively cancel any law or nullify any agency he dislikes by refusing to spend the money appropriated for it.”
迄今为止，总统和他的行动在法庭上面临着一些重要的阻力，但总的来说，共和党领导的国会一直满足于袖手旁观。共和党人有一些抱怨-参议院拨款委员会主席缅因州参议员苏珊柯林斯处于永久的“关注”状态-但国会山的共和党立法者在重申他们对这一基本政府职能的机构控制方面做得很少。
To date, the president and his operation have faced some important pushback in the courts, but by and large, the Republican-led Congress has been content to sit on its hands. There have been some complaints from GOP partisans — Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, is in a perpetual state of “concern” — but Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill have done very little to reassert their institutional control over this basic governmental function.
然而，如果国会的权力在下个月的中期选举中转移到白宫的政治对手手中，那么国会很可能会比过去22个月更加温顺和顺从。白宫采取激进的新措施从国会手中夺取钱包权力
If congressional power were to shift, however, to the White House’s political opponents in next month’s midterm elections, it’s likely Congress would be far less docile and obedient than it’s been over the last 22 months. The post White House takes radical new steps to wrest the power of the purse from Congress MS NOW