The treasury is not the president's campaign chest

CNBC reports that television advertisements featuring President Trump are expanding nationally and attracting bipartisan scrutiny over whether they comply with existing restrictions on taxpayer-funded publicity. I take no position on the content of those advertisements; that is a matter of taste and politics alike. The constitutional question — who authorized the expenditure, under what appropriation, and answerable to whom — is the question that commands my attention.

First, the structural fact. The Constitution vests the power of the purse exclusively in the legislative branch. Article I, Section 9 is unambiguous: no money shall be drawn from the treasury but in consequence of appropriations made by law. An executive agency that directs public funds toward the promotion of the sitting executive — without a clear congressional appropriation for that precise purpose — operates outside the compact. The remedy the framers designed is legislative: the Congress may refuse the appropriation, rescind it, or investigate the officers who obligated the funds. That is not a courtesy; it is a structural duty.

Second, the faction problem. In Federalist No. 10, I argued that the danger of faction lies not in its existence but in its capacity to capture the machinery of government and turn it against the common interest. A president who commands the treasury's communications budget commands a megaphone no private faction can match. If that megaphone is turned toward partisan persuasion on the public's dime, the balance between the branches — and between the governing party and the citizenry — is tilted by the very resources the citizenry supplied. That is precisely the dynamic a written compact is meant to prevent.

Third, the bipartisan signal. CNBC notes that the scrutiny is bipartisan. I regard that as a healthy sign of the extended-republic theory working as intended: when a practice offends members of the president's own coalition, there is reason to believe the objection is structural rather than merely partisan. The Congress should act on that convergence. A joint inquiry — or better, a statutory clarification of what constitutes a permissible use of executive communications funds versus improper self-promotion — would serve the compact far better than a press controversy that fades with the news cycle.

Fourth, the precedent calculus. I would counsel those who are pleased that the current occupant of the office is their preferred executive to consider the rule, not the man. Any precedent that permits an executive to fund his own public image from the treasury will be inherited by every successor, of every party, in every future administration. The framers built the separation of powers not for the virtuous executive but for the ambitious one — because they knew, from history and from human nature, that ambition is the far more reliable constant. The rule must be set for the ambitious case.

The structural question, plainly stated: Do these expenditures rest on a lawful appropriation for the purpose to which they are being put? If not, the House — which under Article I holds the originating power over revenue and appropriations — has both the authority and the obligation to act. Scrutiny from both parties is a beginning. Structural remedy through legislation or the appropriations process is the proper end.