The Sword and the Purse: the why and how of congressional delegation of budget authority to DoD.

Commander Philip J. Candreva

SC, USN, Lecturer for the Graduate School of Business & Public Policy

Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California

"For decades, Presidential administrations have sought to wrap their finger around the purse strings, push away the

Congress, and ignore the Constitution ... it does not matter what administration it is. It does not matter the political party of the president. What matters in nothing more than raw power. Congress has it. The executive branch wants it."

--U.S. Congress. Senate. Protecting the Constitutional Authorities of Congress, 108th Congress, 1st Session, 149 Cong Rec S5397, April 11, 2003

With these words from Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV), Commander Philip J. Candreva opened his story about the delegation of budget authority as a tool for the legislative branch to preserve civilian control of the military. CDR Candreva is a lecturer in financial management at the Naval Postgraduate School. His presentation was based on an article he co-authored with L. R. Jones that will appear in the Spring 2006 issue of the Armed Forces & Society journal.

CDR Candreva suggests that the Defense Emergency Response Fund (DERF) may serve as a case in examining civil-military relations, the budgetary relationship between the Congress and the Department of Defense (DoD), and, ultimately, the dynamics of constitutional power.

Immediately following the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in September 2001--and lasting until October 2003--Congress delegated budget authority to DoD with unprecedented flexibility. The DERF was used by Congress "to delegate relatively unfettered spending authority" in order to rebuild New York City and to prosecute the immediate response to the terrorist attacks. (1) This was a significant departure from business as usual.

Rather, Congress generally follows familiar patterns of robust oversight and micromanagement of funding for military action. (2) As the initial shock of the attacks subsided, Congress became more concerned about the direction of the Bush administration's anti-terrorism initiatives (especially the war in Iraq). In addition, Congress was receiving Government Accountability Office and media reports of accounting mismanagement for contingency operations. Finally, competing issues began jockeying for "air time" in the broader public interest and for ever-dwindling scarce resources. As a consequence, Congress began serially withdrawing much of the delegation it had granted to DoD and eventually dismantled the entire DERF appropriation. CDR Candreva's presentation explored the conditions that fostered this series of events.