The Administration’s Hagiographic Advertisements

Many people are discussing the Administration’s spending taxpayer funds to run partisan advertisements glorifying President Trump less than two months before a crucial election. Most media coverage on this episode has been decent as far as it goes, but it has missed a few points that seem worth pointing out. Most discussions of the legality of these expenditures have focused on statutory prohibitions on this sort of thing. That is fine, I suppose, but to me the first question for any public expenditure is what statute allows it to be made. After all, Article I, Section 9, provides that “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law”. The burden should be on this Administration, or any administration, to identify the appropriation that justifies the expenditure. The Administration has been rather elliptical about this, but social media posts from people on Capitol Hill suggest that the Administration is charging these advertisements to one…