The Power of the Purse I: Inter-Branch Transformations

Charles I of England did not call Parliament into session because he desired its company or because he valued its counsel. He called Parliament into session because he desperately needed money and because, under the Stuart Constitution, he had no other means of obtaining it. This requirement eventually led to the ultimate check on his royal powers. How remarkable it would be if the contemporary U.S. Constitution gave the President more financial autonomy than an English constitution resting on a far more absolutist, and overtly royalist, ideology. This would be all the more remarkable in an era where Originalism is ascendant: very few of the Framers were royalists, and even fewer allowed royalism to slip into their public communications. President Trump has not yet reached the point where his powers clearly exceed those of Charles I, but the degree to which he has wrested the Power of the Purse away from Congress, and the scale of the changes within each branch of government in how…