Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 512.0

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Unit: $U93

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Cite as: 524 U. S. 417 (1998)

467

Opinion of Scalia, J.

manned and ﬁtted out, and employed for such purposes as in
his opinion the public service may require,” Act of Feb. 28,
1803, ch. 11, § 3, 2 Stat. 206. President Jefferson reported
that “[t]he sum of ﬁfty thousand dollars appropriated by Con-
gress for providing gun boats remains unexpended. The fa-
vorable and peaceable turn of affairs on the Mississippi ren-
dered an immediate execution of that law unnecessary,” 13
Annals of Cong. 14 (1803). Examples of appropriations com-
mitted to the discretion of the President abound in our his-
tory. During the Civil War, an Act appropriated over $76
million to be divided among various items “as the exigencies
of the service may require,” Act of Feb. 25, 1862, ch. 32, 12
Stat. 344–345. During the Great Depression, Congress ap-
propriated $950 million “for such projects and/or purposes
and under such rules and regulations as the President in his
discretion may prescribe,” Act of Feb. 15, 1934, ch. 13, 48
Stat. 351, and $4 billion for general classes of projects, the
money to be spent “in the discretion and under the direction
of the President,” Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of
1935, 49 Stat. 115. The constitutionality of such appropria-
tions has never seriously been questioned. Rather, “[t]hat
Congress has wide discretion in the matter of prescrib-
ing details of expenditures for which it appropriates must,
of course, be plain. Appropriations and other acts of Con-
gress are replete with instances of general appropriations of
large amounts, to be allotted and expended as directed by
designated government agencies.” Cincinnati Soap Co. v.
United States, 301 U. S. 308, 321–322 (1937).

Certain Presidents have claimed Executive authority to
withhold appropriated funds even absent an express confer-
ral of discretion to do so.
In 1876, for example, President
Grant reported to Congress that he would not spend money
appropriated for certain harbor and river improvements, see
Act of Aug. 14, 1876, ch. 267, 19 Stat. 132, because “[u]nder
no circumstances [would he] allow expenditures upon works
not clearly national,” and in his view, the appropriations