Article 1, Section 9, Clause 7 of the U.S. Constitution says: “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.”
The President of the United States does not have unlimited authority to decline congressional appropriations and decide what gets funded and by how much depending on his whims and which political adversaries he wants to punish.
By hijacking congressionally appropriated funds, Donald Trump and Elon Musk (and his unqualified, unscreened team) are yanking funding from people and programs in our communities―which will have a real impact on many of our neighbors as they face frozen funding for critical human needs programs that people rely on to survive.
Congress must stand up to stop this lawless power grab.
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Housing costs traditionally eat up a large portion of most Americans’ budgets. But for lower-income renters, rising housing costs mean even less money is left over to cover everything else. According to new research from the Pew Charitable Trusts, renters in the bottom third of the income spectrum spent close…
Back in February, we told you about a tax-dodging scheme that is all too common in this day and age: Pfizer, a U.S. pharmaceutical company and one of the world’s largest, wanted to avoid $35 billion in U.S. taxes on about $148 billion in profits the company maintains offshore. It…
Editor’s Note: the following Letter to the Editor was authored by Don Mathis, a member of CHN’s board of directors and also a board member of Doctors for America. It was printed by the New York Times on March 31, 2016, in response to the Times’ front-page story on March 26,…
How long has it been since you’ve had a raise? For some workers, it has been entirely too long. Today – Friday, April 1, 2016 – marks the 25th anniversary since the minimum wage for tipped workers has been increased. For 25 years now, the minimum wage for an estimated…
This entry originally appeared in the Huffington Post on March 31, 2016. Lana, a single mother with three children, discovered that her one-year old twins tested positive for lead poisoning, and left her contaminated Holyoke, MA apartment, becoming homeless for three months. She got help from a local program, and…
Do poverty, hunger and homelessness exist when there is no one around to see? A tiny South Dakota town that probably 99.99 percent of Americans have never heard of is living testimony that the answer to that question is an emphatic yes. Located in the poorest county in America, the…
Below is a statement from the National Education Association in response to the Supreme Court’s 4-4 decision today in the Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association case. CHN joined with more than 70 national civil rights and other organizations to file one of the “friends of the court” briefs mentioned in…
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A new report confirms what many Americans feel every day: the wage gap between the top and everyone else continues to grow. The good news is that real hourly wages (or, in non-economist speak, wages adjusted for inflation) grew across the board in 2015. However, the folks at the Economic…
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This week, Flint resident Laura MacIntyre got to do something she hasn’t been able to do lately: Actually take a shower. Laura and her family are in Washington, D.C. as part of the “Flint Five,” a group of Michigan families who travelled to the nation’s capital to share their stories…