The appropriation clause establishes a legal rule to govern money in the Consolidated Revenue Fund, a term that describes a place where government revenues are deposited and stored, and from which payments are made to cover government expenditures.1FootnoteSee Treasury, Black`s Law Dictionary (11th edition 2019); see also Samuel Johnson, Treasury, A Dictionary of the English Language (10th ed. 1792); see also United States v. Bank of Metropolis, 40 U.S. 377, 403 (1841) (describes the U.S. Treasury Department as the place where his money must be legally stored). As explained by the Supreme Court, this rule of law states that no money may be paid by the Treasury Department unless authorized to do so by an act of Congress.2FootnoteCincinnati Soap Co. v. United States, 301 U.S. 308, 321 (1937). The clause has its roots in the practice of English parliaments, dating back to at least the 1690s, of adopting both funds to increase government revenue and the use or appropriation of newly collected sums for specific purposes. State constitutions adopted after independence continued this practice, in most cases explicitly identifying appropriation as a necessity for withdrawing funds from a public treasury. The suggestion that a legislature should control the disbursement of public funds seems to be so entrenched in the late 1780s that the budget clause itself was not discussed relatively much either in the Constitutional Convention in which it was drafted or in the conventions of the states in which it was ratified.3FootnoteSee below ArtI.S9.C7.2 Historical context of the budget clause.
In the United Kingdom, an allocation act that allocates various sums to departments and quangos determined by the government. The power to control and direct means represents a most useful and salutary control over abundance and extravagance, as well as against corrupt influence and public speculation. In order to make their accountability complete and perfect, a regular report on revenues and expenditures must be published so that people know what money is being spent, for what purposes and by what authority. There are other essential aspects of the use of funds clause. A credit is often considered as an indication of a sum of money. But an allocation of funds is more than a limit on the amount of money that can be spent. The “means” required by the Constitution must also define the powers, activities and objectives – what we can simply call objects – for which the funds can be used. The specification of these purposes is sometimes made in an allocation law itself (a so-called “tab”), but usually in non-financial funds allocation legislation that establishes federal agencies or pursues certain programs – often referred to as “authorization laws”. Essentially, the mere creation of an agency or the approval of an activity alone does not allow for federal funding. Expenditures require another type of authorization, namely an authorization. Another law codifies the concept that funds must be spent within the time frame set by Congress.
The Constitution expressly stipulates that the duration of the resources of the “army” must be limited to two years (Article 1, Section 8, paragraph 12). Since the first Congress, operating funds from federal agencies have generally been approved annually, but major capital projects may have longer grant periods. The Constitution assigns the power of the scholarship to Congress: “No money may be taken from the Treasury, but as a result of allocations made by law.” By determining the activities on which public funds can be spent, Congress defines the contours of federal power. This requirement of legislative allocation before the use of public funds is the basis of our constitutional order. Paragraph 7 of section 9 of Article 1 contains a second provision supplementing the appropriations: “and a regular statement of the receipts and expenditures of all public funds shall be published from time to time.” Like the need for resources, this requirement is not a power, but a legislative obligation, which has been interpreted as requiring an annual budget. Justice Story explained the connection between the two requirements in commentaries on the Constitution in 1840: There are a variety of other forms of federal spending powers in addition to laws called “grants.” For example, Congress has often authorized agencies to “commit” federal funds that have not yet been approved. Such commitment authority is necessary because federal organizations, which are funded annually, are often required to enter into multi-year contracts. There is no violation of the allocation clause until funds are disbursed until they have been approved. Congress has long codified this requirement, requiring that “funds be used only for the purposes for which the funds have been allocated, unless otherwise required by law.” This last sentence refers mainly to a large number of laws that, under certain conditions, grant executive agencies limited powers to “reprogram” posts as part of a financial allocation. This practice does not contravene the allocation clause, since the reprogramming authority effectively extends the purposes for which the funds are allocated.
The appropriations clause appears to categorically require the president and federal agencies to spend funds only as authorized by Congress. Even when the president feels that federal spending is desperately needed, spending without funds is constitutionally prohibited. Of course, in an emergency, a president can decide that principles that are more fundamental than the resources of the Constitution justify spending. For example, at the beginning of the Civil War — with the nation itself in danger — Lincoln ordered the spending of two million dollars of federal funds in advance. In canon law, appropriation is the perpetual annexation of an ecclesiastical benefit for the use of a spiritual body, aggregated or alone. In the Middle Ages, the custom developed in England whereby monasteries reserved most of the tithes of their appropriate profits for their own use and left only a small part to their vicars in the parishes. When monasteries were dissolved, the rights to collect the “great tithe” were often sold to lay people with former monastic lands; whose successors, called “lay owners” or “lay rectors”, still hold them, the system is called appropriation. [1] Strictly speaking, the budget clause does not confer on Congress any separate legislative power in the order of the powers enumerated in Article I, Section 8. Rather, the clause is worded as a restriction on state action.4FootnoteCf.
e.g. U.S. Const. I, § 8, cl. 1 (Congress shall have power to levy and collect taxes, duties, duties, and excise duties, to settle debts, and to ensure the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all tariffs, duties, and excise duties shall be uniform throughout the United States.)