If it's a governmental entity and it spends money, the House can turn off the spigot

Another great Sean Davis column at The Federalist.  He discusses the irony of Pubs trying to find excuses for not searching everywhere for the effective weapon against what the Most Equal Comrade intends to do tonight.  He cites the spokesman for the House Appropriations Committee saying that because US Citizenship and Immigration Services is funded by fees, it can't be defunded. Davis counters with the fact that "every single dollar spent by the federal government must first be appropriated by Congress."

It would be clean and effective.  So why aren't we seeing action?

The only thing that differentiates mandatory and discretionary spending is how often each must be re-authorized. Every single dollar spent by the federal government must be first appropriated by Congress. Just because some spending is not subject to annual appropriation doesn’t mean it’s not subject to appropriation at all. Congress can’t block Obama’s executive order by shutting down the government, but it most certainly can defund it by law.

Congress adds riders and prohibitions to appropriations bills all the time. Why? Because it can. That’s kind of the whole purpose of Article 1, Section 9 of the U.S. Constitution:

No money shall be drawn from the treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law[.]

And from that power of the purse come the most powerful words in federal law: “Notwithstanding any other provision of law, no funds shall be appropriated or otherwise made available for ______.”

That’s it. That’s literally all it takes. It doesn’t matter if the spending is mandatory or discretionary, good or bad, wasteful or essential; when that sentence becomes law, it nukes whatever spending it touches up until the point at which that sentence is repealed or superseded by a future law.

Republicans can add defunding language to any bill whenever they so choose. The issue is not that they can’t use the power of the purse to block Obama’s lawless power grab. The issue is that they don’t want to. The real shame is that they can’t even be honest about that.

The eleventh hour before the Constitution is shredded is no time to get all chickens--- about potential shutdowns.  Just craft a law that starves this agency until the MEC loosens his grip on it.