Tuesday, April 03, 2007

Food and Forage, Baby!   [Rich Lowry]

Another friend e-mails:

Here is some context for what Guiliani said.

The Food & Forage Act of 1861 creates a background rule to allow for Presidential spending for "clothing, subsistence, forage, fuel, quarters, transportation, or medical and hospital supplies" where appropriations are inadequate to cover them. The Department of Defense invoked his law in the aftermath of 9/11 for some immediate needs they had. The major role of the law has been to sustain soldiers during funding gaps at the end of a fiscal year.

It's relevant here if Democrats merely try to scale back funding. Here is how Rep. Kucinich (D-Moscow) described the situation on 11/30/06:

<<The Administration does not have to pay any attention to Congress' attempt to guide the administrative conduct of the war. Once Congress gave its consent for military action, it literally did not have the authority to guide the conduct of the war. At this point, the only option Congress has to guide the conduct of the war is to withdraw approval for the war through a cut off. Even a substantial reduction of funds could leave open the door for a legal claim that Congress still intends to keep troops in Iraq. The Administration can rummage through the DOD budget and find money to keep its desired troop levels. Unless the Congress totally cuts off funds, it leaves itself open to an imposition of Presidential will through the Food and Forage Act of 1861. See <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-dennis-kucinich/there-is-only-one-way-to-_b_35299.html> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-dennis-kucinich/there-is-only-one-way-to-_b_35299.html.>>

Nothing in the Food & Forage Act prevents Congress from cutting off funds altogether or preventing ongoing funding for the war, as long as Congress makes clear that the Food & Forage Act shouldn't continue to apply for this conflict. For example, if Congress were to cut off funds for the war, the legislation would just need to state that it did so "notwithstanding the provisions of the Food & Forage Act" — in other words, regardless of the earlier law. There is no problem with doing that, and Congress would be very likely to include the language if there were any risk that the President would ignore funding limitations included in the appropriations measure (be it DOD approps or an emergency supp).

This is an incomplete answer to your question, but it’s a start.

04/03 10:04 AMShare