Appropriation bill

“ Much was said on all hands, but we negatived the motion.
The appropriation bill was now reported, with a very trifling amendment indeed; to divide a sum of about a hundred and ninety dollars between our doorkeeper and the doorkeeper of the Representatives. The momentum of a spittle would have been as effectual to stop the flowing of the sea as any effort to cheek this bill. The appropriations were all in gross, and to the amount of upward of half a million. ”

“ The general appropriation bill can embrace only the ordinary expenses, and every other subject of appropriation must be included in a bill by itself. Every bill requires a majority vote of all the members elected to each House. ”

“ Appropriation Bills.—An appropriations bill shall not contain any general legislation or change of existing law provision which is not germane to the subject matter of the underlying bill. This subsection does not prohibit any provision imposing limitations upon the expenditure of appropriated funds. ”

“ A real debate at that stage occurs only in the case of great party measures, where both sides of the House want to be familiar with the scope of the bill, the objections that may be made to it, and the way it strikes the public, before the first effective debate upon its merits opens. The procedure upon money bills, which appears at first sight still more arbitrary, and complex, is perfectly rational also, and the differences from the method of passing ordinary measures arise from the nature of the case. There can be no doubt about the general principle of the annual appropriation bill. ”

“ A practice has, however, grown up of late years to ingraft on such bills at the last hours of the session large appropriations for new and important objects not provided for by preexisting laws and when no time is left to the Executive for their examination and investigation. No alternative is thus left to the President but either to approve measures without examination or by vetoing an appropriation bill seriously to embarrass the operations of the Government. ”

“ The President may approve any appropriation or provision and disapprove any other appropriation or provision in the same appropriation bill. In such case he shall, in signing the bill, designate the appropriations and provisions disapproved ”

“ Another abuse by the executive departments was the habit of making contracts in advance of appropriations, thus, without law, compelling Congress to sanction them or violate the public faith. All these evils have since been remedied by restrictive legislation. The habit of the Senate to load down appropriation bills with amendments already refused by the House of Representatives, and then insist that, if not agreed to, the bill would fail, was more frequent then than now, but under the practice now established an amendment finally disagreed to by either House is abandoned. ”

“ Every appropriation bill which has come before the Senate this year has been reduced by the Senate below the budget request. The people of this country have called upon the Members of Congress to reduce the costs of government, not to increase them by creating new agencies or commissions. ”

“ These are circumstances that impose the necessity of rigid economy and require its prompt and constant exercise. With the Legislature rest the power and duty of so adjusting the public expenditure as to promote this end. By the provisions of the Constitution it is only in consequence of appropriations made by law that money can be drawn from the Treasury. No instance has occurred since the establishment of the Government in which the Executive, though a component part of the legislative power, has interposed an objection to an appropriation bill on the sole ground of its extravagance. ”

“ Granting that after the adoption of the resolution by the House of Commons they were bound to insert it in their Bill, what justification is there for their refusal to receive the Bill back from the Lords with no other alteration than the omission of the appropriation clause? In so refusing they destroy their own measure; they publish to the world that it is the principle of appropriation, and not the Tithe composition, that they really care for ”

“ And yet I feel obliged to withhold my approval of the plan, as proposed by this bill, to indulge a benevolent and charitable sentiment through the appropriation of public funds for that purpose.
I can find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution, and I do not believe that the power and duty of the General Government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering which is in no manner properly related to the public service or benefit. ”

“ The Senate may not amend any Bill so as to increase any proposed charges or burden on the people. 61. Any Bill which appropriates revenue or moneys for the ordinary annual services of the Government shall deal only with such appropriation. 62. The House of Assembly shall not originate or pass any vote, resolution, address, or Bill for the appropriation of any part of the public revenue or of any tax or impost to any purpose unless such appropriation has been recommended by message from the Governor-General during the Session in which such vote, resolution, address, or Bill is proposed. ”

“ The Minister of Finance shall submit to the Senate, at each regular session of the Legislature, Appropriation Bills for the succeeding biennial period.
Section 3. No Appropriation Bill or bill providing for a national loan shall be introduced by any one except a member of the Cabinet. ”

“ But conceding, without so deciding, the soundness of the inference deduced from the premise upon which the court proceeded, we are of opinion that error was committed in bringing together wholly distinct and nonrelated provisions simply because they were found in one general appropriation bill, and thus interpreting the act not by its true text, but by an imaginary context. ”

“ If an enlargement of the powers of the Federal Government should be deemed proper, it is safer and wiser to appeal to the States and the people in the mode prescribed by the Constitution for the grant desired than to assume its exercise without an amendment of the Constitution. If Congress does not possess the general power to construct works of internal improvement within the States, or to appropriate money from the Treasury for that purpose, what is there to exempt some, at least, of the objects of appropriation included in this bill from the operation of the general rule? ”

“ No bill except the budget bill may contain more than one item of appropriation, and that for one certain, expressed purpose. Appropriations from the General Fund of the State, except appropriations for the public schools, are void unless passed in each house by rollcall vote entered in the journal, two-thirds of the membership concurring. ”

“ We, Sir, are a Republic; we are living under republican institutions; and, as I understand them, one of their essential elements is Education. Now, Sir, here is an agency associated with the National Government, having education for its object; and what is the appropriation proposed by our excellent committee? It is $5,400: that is all. Looking on the opposite page of the bill, I find an appropriation of $9,000 for stationery, furniture, and books for the Interior Department; I find an appropriation of $16,000 for fuel and lights for the Interior Department ”

“ Every bill passed by the Legislature making appropriations of money or raising revenue, embracing distinct items, shall before it becomes a law, be presented to the Chief Executive; if he disapproves the bill, or any item or appropriation therein contained, he shall communicate such disapproval with his reasons therefor to the Legislature; but all items not disapproved shall have the force and effect of law according to the original provisions of the bill. Any item so disapproved shall be void, unless repassed by a two-thirds majority of the Legislature and approved by the Deputy Governor. ”

“ The preparation of the general appropriation bills should be conducted with the greatest care and the closest scrutiny of expenditures. Appropriations should be adequate to the needs of the public service, but they should be absolutely free from prodigality. ”

“ The upper house may add to them what it pleases; may go altogether outside of their original provisions and tack to them entirely new features of legislation, altering not only the amounts but even the objects of expenditure, and making out of the materials sent them by the popular chamber measures of an almost totally new character. As passed by the House of Representatives, appropriation bills generally provide for an expenditure considerably less than that called for by the estimates ”

“ A glance at the result of the work done by the various congressional committees charged with the duty of preparing appropriation bills is enough to bring conviction that order and system must be substituted for the present chaotic methods; while, if we could penetrate the secrets of the committee-rooms, the country would stand appalled at the ignoble tricks and devices by which the “pork-barrel” is filled and the money of the taxpayers wantonly and wickedly wasted. ”

“ Expenditures made pursuant to this joint resolution shall be charged to the applicable appropriation, fund, or authorization whenever a bill in which such applicable appropriation, fund, or authorization is contained is enacted into law. ”

“ It is equally useless to suggest as a remedy for the prevailing extravagance, which he admits, a different arrangement of the appropriation bills and the exclusion from them of private claims. The rules of the House and of the Senate have not been the real cause of the disease, and a mere reform of those rules, however desirable, will not be a sufficient remedy. ”

“ In each regular session in an even-numbered year, at such time as may be provided by law, the governor may submit to the legislature a bill to amend any appropriation for operating expenditures of the current fiscal biennium, to be known as the supplemental appropriations bill, and bills to amend any appropriations for capital expenditures of the current fiscal biennium, and at the same time the governor shall submit a bill or bills to provide for any added revenues or borrowings that such amendments may require. ”

“ They must be passed before the end of June, else the departments will be left altogether without means of support. The chairman of the Committee on Appropriations is, consequently, a very masterful authority in the House. He can force it to a consideration of the business of his Committee at almost any time; and by withholding his reports until the session is well advanced can crowd all other topics from the docket. For much time is spent over each of the "general appropriation bills." The spending of money is one of the two things that Congress invariably stops to talk about ”

“ Sumner. The Senator refers to what are called the general appropriation bills. The Senate constantly makes appropriations for individual cases and for carrying out treaties. Does it not appropriate for private claims, for salaries, for other obligations? In principle, the present case does not differ from an appropriation for an estate adjoining the Capitol. Alaska is not an estate adjoining the Capitol; but it is to be paid for. ”

“ The only settled policy of government is inertia. The House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations, I believe, proposes to abolish the appropriation for the Court, which looks like a cowardly way to get at the thing, but perhaps it is most effective. ”

“ Appropriations of this nature, to be devoted purely to local objects, tend to an increase in number and in amount. As the citizens of one State find that money, to raise which they in common with the whole country are taxed, is to be expended for local improvements in another State, they demand similar benefits for themselves, and it is not unnatural that they should seek to indemnify themselves for such use of the public funds by securing appropriations for similar improvements in their own neighborhood. Thus as the bill becomes more objectionable it secures more support. ”

“ It is said to be bad because it is earmarked and devoted from its inception to a specific purpose. But if the tax, qua tax, be good, as we hold it is, and the purpose specified be one which would sustain a subsequent and separate appropriation made out of the general funds of the Treasury, neither is made invalid by being bound to the other in the same act of legislation. The only concern which we have in that aspect of the matter is to determine whether the purpose specified is one for which Congress can make an appropriation without violating the fundamental law. ”

“ The government asserts that even if the respondents may question the propriety of the appropriation embodied in the statute, their attack must fail because article 1, § 8 of the Constitution, authorizes the contemplated expenditure of the funds raised by the tax. ”

“ Whatever doubts might be entertained as to the authority of the legislature to make a levy and an appropriation to take effect in subsequent years, to meet the interest then accruing, they are removed by the constitutional amendment. There is nothing in the reason of the thing why the levy of taxes and the appropriations for all purposes should be made annually. ”

“ A popular election having been held, and a majority of votes cast at the election having been in favor of the appropriation, it may be conceded that payment of the appropriation could lawfully have been made in town bonds instead of money, if the donation itself was authorized. ”