On April 14, U.S. President Donald Trump announced a halt to funding to the World Health Organization. At least, that was the message most people received in coverage of that announcement. The truth is far more complicated. It demonstrates the power of soundbites and partisan coverage as both sides vie to win the news cycle on any given day.
For decades, the U.S. Congress has given authority to the president to participate in the United Nations and its international organizations. During the Trump administration, the president has requested that funding to these entities be slashed, but Congress has never gone along with that suggestion. But while funding legislation devotes money to “contributions to international organizations," it does not specify activities by line item. For every appropriations bill, there is an accompanying report that explains the committee’s intentions in the law. In recent years, these explanatory statements contained language that contributions are expected to be made in the full amount. But accompanying reports do not have the force of law, and this lack of specificity gives the president a lot of leeway in how money is spent.
The president's comments are often off the cuff, but here they absolutely were not. Trump’s prepared remarks said precisely what the U.S. government was doing: “Today, I am instructing my administration to halt funding of the World Health Organization while a review is conducted to assess the World Health Organization’s role in severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the coronavirus.” In several follow up questions, the president stated that this was an investigation, not a full funding cut, and one that could have been done by previous administrations.
But most of the commentary on this topic has implied that funding to the World Health Organization has been halted, full stop. This leads to the impression among many Americans that the president has far more power than he actually has. The president may see himself as the CEO of the U.S. government, but even if that is the case, there is also a board of directors comprised of an assortment of 535 men and women from all over the country. This is called Congress. They are the ones who hold the power to direct funding to the WHO, or not to.
Article I, section 7 of the Constitution states that “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.” A litany of Congressional appropriators have correctly pointed out that the president does not have the authority to cancel funding to the United Nations and its organizations wholesale. Only Congress can do that. And while there will be hearings on WHO’s response to this pandemic, it is unlikely that Congress will repeal its support – and it will be carefully watching what the administration does with its limited power.
Congress can get prickly about protecting its power of the purse. During the Nixon administration, the president unilaterally impounded funds that were appropriated to programs that he did not care for. He simply decided not to spend the money. In the midst of the Watergate scandal, Congress moved to reassert its authority with The Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974. This law did two profound things that are still felt today. For one, it established our current budgetary process, giving the president the minimal power to make suggestions at the beginning of the year on what the administration would like to see funded. After that, Congress takes over and does the work of developing a budget and creating appropriations laws, often ignoring the president's requests altogether.
The “Impoundment Control” portion of the law prevents a President from simply ignoring congressional direction on where money is appropriated. Within limits set in law by Congress, the president can reprogram a tiny percentage of line items within the budget with a simple notification. But he cannot repurpose an entire program to a project not approved in law. For example, the Government Accountability Office found that the president's withholding of aid to Ukraine in 2019 was a violation of this law. In the case of the WHO review, some in Congress are drawing parallels to the Ukraine situation. Still, the ambiguity in the legislative text may be the loophole that allows the president to make his point. Congress will keep an eye on where the funding goes, how much of it moves, and whether funding to the WHO resumes after the period suggested by the president. The president's remarks were carefully worded, stating not only that there was a specific window of time for this stoppage, but that during this period, funding will be given to organizations the United States is already working with. So, using reprogramming and transfer authority, other medical organizations that already receive appropriation may see a slight increase in their funding.
Congress will be watching to see if those funds do not exceed the reprogramming limitations set by Congress. If they do, expect to see Congress come back with more explicit language about funding the WHO in appropriations laws and in accompanying reports, and more stringent reprogramming limitations to prevent the administration from subverting the will of Congress.
Aaron Jones is the Director of Congressional Relations at The Wilson Center in Washington, DC. The views expressed are the author's own.
