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Page Number: 48

16 

HEALTH AND HOSPITAL CORPORATION OF MARION 
CTY. v. TALEVSKI 
THOMAS, J., dissenting 

Clause “includes the power to spend public funds on author-
ized federal activities”).  But, because the Clause authorizes 
only  those  spending  measures  that  are  “ ‘necessary  and 
proper for carrying into Execution’ other enumerated fed-
eral powers[,] Congress can . . . spend only if the appropri-
ation is tied to the execution of one of the federal govern-
ment’s  granted  powers.”    Lawson  &  Seidman  30.  The 
Clause thus “does not provide a stand-alone grant of spend-
ing authority, and certainly not an authority to spend for a 
nonspecific ‘general welfare of the United States.’ ”  Ibid. 

A  second  plausible  source  of  the  spending  power  is  the 
Property Clause, which provides that “Congress shall have 
Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regu-
lations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging 
to the United States.”  Art. IV, §3, cl. 2.  The term “other 
Property”  may  “comprehen[d]  personal  property  no  less 
than real,” and “personal property includes money, as well
as  financial  assets  of  all  kinds.”    Engdahl,  18  Seattle  U. 
L. Rev., at 250 (emphasis deleted).  But the power to dispose 
of  funds  does  not  carry  with  it  any  regulatory  power;  the 
Property  Clause  “only  authorizes  the  control  and  disposi-
tion of federal property” and “does not disturb the allocation
of governance authority otherwise accomplished under the
principle of enumerated powers.”  Id., at 251.  Thus, when 
disposing  of  federal  property  under  the  Property  Clause, 
“Congress has no more competence to make ‘law’ than any
private donor or testator has.”  Engdahl, 44 Duke L. Rev., 
at 104. 

B 

In  the  early  decades  after  ratification,  both  the  source 
and the scope of the spending power were hotly contested,
usually  in  debates  over  “internal  improvements”  such  as
roads and canals.  One side, represented by Madison, main-
tained that federal spending must be strictly in aid of the 
Federal Government’s specifically enumerated powers—for