Congress alone can tax, borrow, and spend. The Constitution's bluntest structural check is one sentence: no money leaves the Treasury except through an appropriation made by law. An executive with no funding can do very little, which is exactly the point.
Read the clause itself, verbatim and in plain language, in the in-app Constitution.
Congress, with revenue bills starting in the House
Taxing and spending run through ordinary legislation: authorizations create programs, annual appropriationA law permitting federal agencies to spend money. The Constitution forbids any spending without one, Congress's 'power of the purse'.Full definition in the glossary fund them, and the government shutdownThe lapse in operations when appropriations expire: agencies must halt non-excepted work and furlough employees until funding resumes.Full definition in the glossary makes spending without an appropriation illegal, which is why funding lapses shut the government down. Revenue bills must originate in the House, the chamber the framers kept closest to the voters.
Constitution Annotated, Article I
Terms to know: appropriationA law permitting federal agencies to spend money. The Constitution forbids any spending without one, Congress's 'power of the purse'.Full definition in the glossary · authorizationA law creating a program and setting its rules and spending ceilings. Separate from the appropriation that actually funds it.Full definition in the glossary · government shutdownThe lapse in operations when appropriations expire: agencies must halt non-excepted work and furlough employees until funding resumes.Full definition in the glossary · debt limitThe statutory cap on total federal borrowing. Raising it does not authorize new spending; it lets Treasury pay for spending Congress already enacted.Full definition in the glossary
