The White House has not requested supplemental funding from Congress for a campaign consuming $891 million per day. Congress — which rejected the Kaine–Paul War Powers Resolution 47–53 in the Senate on Wednesday and defeated the Massie–Khanna resolution in the House on Thursday — has been asked for neither war authorisation nor war funding.
The statute at issue is the Antideficiency Act (31 U.S.C. §§ 1341–1342), which prohibits federal officers from obligating or expending funds beyond amounts Congress has appropriated. Violations carry criminal penalties: fines up to $5,000 and imprisonment of up to two years. No executive official has ever been criminally prosecuted under the Act for wartime spending. Enforcement has been administrative — reprimands and reassignments — making the statute a constraint that has never been tested in practice at anything approaching this expenditure rate.
The Administration's legal footing for the operation itself rests on Article II commander-in-chief authority and the War Powers Resolution's 60-day clock, which began when strikes started on 28 February and expires in late April. The Resolution requires the President either to withdraw forces or obtain congressional authorisation within that window. Every president since Nixon has questioned its constitutionality; no court has ruled definitively. The funding question is more immediately pressing: existing DoD accounts are finite, and at $891 million per day, available balances may be exhausted before the constitutional clock runs out.
The arrangement has no precedent at this scale. Congress twice declined to authorise the war. Congress twice declined to stop it. The White House has not asked for money. The executive is drawing down accounts filled by prior appropriations for purposes Congress did not envision. Each additional day of operations deepens the gap between what has been authorised and what is being spent — a gap that only a supplemental appropriations bill or a ceasefire can close.
