A Question of Strategy

[erpowers]

Since Congress has the right to appropriate funds would it be legal for a bill to be created that told Congress it could not fund its pet projects by taking money from a particular area. For instance, if someone decided to introduce a bill preventing Congressmembers from funding their pet projects by taking money from the Operations and Maintenance account would that bill even be legal?

[notesdev]

1. Probably not

That would require Congress to have the power to limit its own powers. But it is not Congress that grants those powers, it is the Constitution that does so. In order to limit those powers an Amendment would need to be passed.

However, if it is the will of Congress that a particular account not be subject to appropriations for other purposes, it can simply reject any legislation that does so, and no law would need to be passed to make that happen.