Dallas Morning News: Officials calculate cost of Trump’s plan

Dallas Morning News: Officials calculate cost of Trump’s plan

Government watchdog groups have called Trump’s move an act of executive overreach that usurps Congress’ constitutional power to allocate federal funds. “Americans expect and deserve more from their President in the midst of a pandemic and an economic crisis,” Karen Hobert Flynn, president of Common Cause, said in a statement. “Unwilling and unable to negotiate with Congress to deliver a relief package to a nation reeling from COVID-19, President Trump resorted to unconstitutional half measures that will do little to address the serious issues facing the nation.”

Two days after President Donald Trump’s surprise executive action to extend federal pandemic relief to unemployed Americans, questions abound about how the plan will be implemented in Texas.

On Saturday, after two weeks of stalled congressional negotiations over extending financial relief for unemployed Americans, Trump took executive action that he said would ban evictions, suspend payroll taxes, give relief to student borrowers, and create $400 weekly payments to people who are out of work. Those payments would be $200 less per week than workers previously received under Congress’ coronavirus relief legislation.

But it is still unclear whether Trump has the legal authority to implement such orders because Congress controls federal spending, not the president. Moreover, state agencies and officials tasked with carrying out the orders are still unclear about how to do that.

Government watchdog groups have called Trump’s move an act of executive overreach that usurps Congress’ constitutional power to allocate federal funds.

“Americans expect and deserve more from their President in the midst of a pandemic and an economic crisis,” Karen Hobert Flynn, president of Common Cause, said in a statement. “Unwilling and unable to negotiate with Congress to deliver a relief package to a nation reeling from COVID-19, President Trump resorted to unconstitutional half measures that will do little to address the serious issues facing the nation.”