The details will be different in each instance, but you can be sure that all over the federal government this week these sorts of letters were being written and sent in preparation for the showdown. Here is the current OMB memo that outlines protocols. Here is a April 2011 White House memo that also adds context. Some workers will simply be sent home. Others will have to work with only the promise of pay. And Congress will have the obligation, moral if not political, to clean up whatever mess it and the White House create in the next few days and weeks.
The History of the Act “Those who disburse the money are like a saucy boy who knows his grandfather will gratify him, and over-turns the sum allowed him at pleasure,” Rep. John Randolph of Virginia said in 1806. The “saucy boy” here was the executive branch, the grandfather Congress. Georgetown University Law Professor Timothy Westmoreland, who has a background in congressional politics, wrote via email:
All civics students learn that the Congress has “the power of the purse.” The Constitution gives the Congress the decision about whether to spend money or not. This shows up in Article I of the Constitution, where it says, “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.” The Executive Branch cannot make a decision on its own to spend money — and that’s clearly what the Framers wanted.
That seems fairly straightforward, but almost from the beginning of the Nation, the Executive Branch tried different ways to dodge that fundamental restriction.I’ve seen references to congressional complaints about this all the way back to John Calhoun in 1816 and Henry Clay in 1819.