When we praised the swearing as secretaries of the Treasury on 70, 71, 75, 76, and 78, we took our oath to support and defend the U.S. Constitution.
Our roles were multifaceted. We have sought to advance the president’s agenda and develop sound policies to represent the economic interests of the United States on the world stage. But by doing that, we realised that our most fundamental responsibility was the faithful execution of American law and constitution.
Fortunately, during my tenure, I was fortunate that no efforts were made to illegally undermine the country’s financial commitments. Unfortunately, recent reports provide a major source of concern that such efforts are currently underway.
The national payment system has historically been run by a very small group of nonpartisan career civil servants. Recently, the norms have been overthrown, and the role of these nonpartisan officials has been compromised by so-called government efficiency political actors. One was appointed as deputy financial secretary. This is a post that for the past 80 years, only civil servants have been reserved to ensure fairness and public confidence in handling and paying federal funds.
These political actors are not subject to the same strict ethical rules as civil servants, but clearly hold his role in private companies, creating the emergence of financial conflicts of interest at best. They have no training or experience to process private personal data, such as Social Security numbers and bank account information. Their power covers the American payment system and highly sensitive data that potentially poses a risk of exposure to its enemies. And our critical infrastructure is at risk of failure if the code that takes over it is not properly handled. That’s why this past weekend, a federal judge focused on, at least temporarily, these individuals in the Treasury payment system, on the risk of “irreparable harm.”
While critical data privacy, cybersecurity, and national security threats are of concern, the constitutional issues are perhaps even more surprising. We take the extraordinary steps of writing this piece. Because we are amazed at the risk of arbitrary, whimsical political control of federal payments that are illegal and corrosive to our democracy.
A key element of the rule of law is the administrative department’s commitment to respect the power of the Congress’ wallet. The legislative department has the sole authority to pass laws that determine where and how federal dollars should be spent.
The role of the Treasury and the role of the administrative agency are more widely held, but not to make a decision about which federal funding promises it maintains and not to maintain. As Supreme Court Judge Brett Kavanaugh wrote earlier, “Even the president has no one-sided authority to refuse to spend the money.” Supreme Court Justice John Roberts agrees: “He wrote, “There is no area that is more clearly visible than the power of a wallet than the states of Congress.”
In the 18-year group at the helm of the Treasury, they were never asked to stop the funds allocated to Congress from being paid in full. Not since the Nixon administration came up with this type of executive action. At the time, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the President had no authority to withhold federal funds approved by Congress.
The Trump administration may try to change the law and change what Congress will pay. And if the law changes, it will be the role of the administrative department to implement these changes. But it’s not about the Treasury or the administration deciding which of our Congress-approved commitments to meet or which to put aside.
The Treasury Secretary in his first weeks of office should not be placed in the necessary position to reassure the nation and the world of integrity in the payment system.
Since Secretary Scott Becent had to do exactly that, the recent access to the Treasury payment system “has not been denied by the federal government a suspension or denying of submitted payment instructions.” I comforted my commitment. When asked repeatedly, he clearly stated, “We don’t have it.”
I hope this commitment comes into play. It gave many authority to the administrative agencies, but gave the administrative department a lot of authority to impose and spend federal funds that are only elected members of the Congress and the Congress, and to balance the administrative department more. When you design your government, the framers intended it.
Many people and organizations rely on the loyal payments of federal funds from the Treasury. Social Security checks arrive monthly. Veterans receive benefits. Medicare providers will be refunded. All federal workers, military and corporate members who provide goods and services to the government are paid on time. Holders of unpaid federal obligations will receive interest.
People often rely on these funds for survival, and take the risk of cut-off or delayed existence. But beyond the importance of being good at a particular commitment, it is the importance of doing good things based on the principles that this country represents. During our service at the Treasury, we face a moment of crisis that has come upon us by default American asylum. The hint for selective suspension of payments approved by Congress is a violation of trust and ultimately the default form. And once we’ve lost our reliability, we find it difficult to recover.