As the federal government barrels toward a possible shutdown, it should be easy to see where the blame lies for the impasse over funding the government. The administration, through its underhanded attempts to unilaterally claw back spending approved by Congress, has poisoned the already ailing budget process.

Typically, Congress is to blame for shutdowns, as our representatives in Washington have become notoriously incompetent at using the proper process to fund the government. But Senate Democrats’ push for assurances that the administration won’t simply override this stopgap funding bill with more unabashed executive overreach is valid.

Protecting Congress’ spending power provides a foundation for lawmakers to engage in good-faith, bipartisan negotiations and, ultimately, means protecting the ability of everyday Americans to influence what happens in their communities. The Constitution dictates that the power to appropriate public funds rests with Congress, the branch closest to the people.

This administration is putting this freedom — and the separation of powers upon which our system of government rests — in jeopardy through “pocket rescissions.” This likely is an illegal maneuver that, if sanctioned, would allow the President to take away funding for any program or project he disagrees with, even after Congress has approved the funds.

Say Congress greenlights funding for a new bridge. It’s a popular bridge that constituents have been pushing their representative to fund for years, and they finally made it happen. The President doesn’t want to build the bridge, but he doesn’t think a simple majority in Congress will vote to rescind the funds.

Since he can’t get Congress on his side, the President decides to go the route of the pocket rescission. He waits until the last 45 days of the fiscal year to submit a proposal to claw back these funds. If Congress fails to vote on the proposal before the end of the fiscal year, the funds technically expire. And with razor thin margins in Congress, if just a handful of bad faith lawmakers decide to cede power to the President, they can tank the funding. So the bridge is defunded even though there was bipartisan agreement that funding the bridge would benefit the American people.

That’s exactly what the President did a few weeks ago with nearly $5 billion in foreign aid that was previously passed by policymakers in both parties. This introduces a dangerous precedent that could allow the President to strip funding from any program he disagrees with.

Not only does it give the President unilateral authority over a process that needs checks and balances, it also destroys the delicate bipartisan agreements members of Congress reach and undermines the will of everyday people.

If the executive branch can erase funding without a vote, then the need for bipartisan collaboration disappears, and members of Congress and the people they represent no longer have a voice in spending decisions. In fact, many scholars, advocates, the Government Accountability Office and even some members of Congress believe pocket rescissions are illegal and represent a misinterpretation of the law.

And this isn’t the only way the administration has tried to take control of spending decisions.

In July, Congress ended up approving a separate rescission package from the President, rolling back around $9 billion in spending. But even this was mired in controversy because the administration failed to disclose the details of the rescissions package. Members of the President’s own party spoke out against the lack of transparency.

All the while, the administration was ramping up illegal funding freezes, contract cancellations and grant pauses, directing spending power away from Congress and toward White House priorities.

The pocket rescission is just the latest — and perhaps, most egregious — attempt to take unilateral control of spending decisions, and destroy the constitutional process that funds our schools, hospitals and roads.

This goes beyond party politics. This is about protecting the checks and balances that ensure the government actually works for the people it’s meant to serve. Luckily, there’s a way for Congress to draw a line in the sand and re-assert its power before this spirals further out of control. By passing the Congressional Power of the Purse Act, which was introduced earlier this month and designed to give Congress additional tools to check executive branch power when it comes to spending, they can stop this federal overreach in its tracks.

More immediately, Congress could also add language into its forthcoming appropriations bills more explicitly protecting funding decisions.

Lawmakers cannot let the President unilaterally steal funding away from their constituents — and ultimately, undermine the need for members to reach across the aisle to serve the American people.

Faith Williams is the director of the Effective and Accountable Government Program at Project on Government Oversight.

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