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524US2

Unit: $U93

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CLINTON v. CITY OF NEW YORK

Breyer, J., dissenting

separation-of-powers principle. Consequently, I believe that
the Act is constitutional.

II

I approach the constitutional question before us with three
general considerations in mind. First, the Act represents a
legislative effort to provide the President with the power to
give effect to some, but not to all, of the expenditure and
revenue-diminishing provisions contained in a single massive
appropriations bill. And this objective is constitutionally
proper.

When our Nation was founded, Congress could easily have
provided the President with this kind of power.
In that
time period, our population was less than 4 million, see U. S.
Dept. of Commerce, Census Bureau, Historical Statistics of
the United States: Colonial Times to 1970, pt. 1, p. 8 (1975),
federal employees numbered fewer than 5,000, see id., pt. 2,
at 1103, annual federal budget outlays totaled approximately
$4 million, see id., pt. 2, at 1104, and the entire operative
text of Congress’ ﬁrst general appropriations law read as
follows:

“Be it enacted . . . [t]hat there be appropriated for the
service of the present year, to be paid out of the monies
which arise, either from the requisitions heretofore
made upon the several states, or from the duties on im-
port and tonnage, the following sums, viz. A sum not
exceeding two hundred and sixteen thousand dollars for
defraying the expenses of the civil list, under the late
and present government; a sum not exceeding one hun-
dred and thirty-seven thousand dollars for defraying the
expenses of the department of war; a sum not exceeding
one hundred and ninety thousand dollars for discharging
the warrants issued by the late board of treasury, and
remaining unsatisﬁed; and a sum not exceeding ninety-
six thousand dollars for paying the pensions to invalids.”
Act of Sept. 29, 1789, ch. 23, § 1, 1 Stat. 95.