Government Discovers Money In Couch Cushions, Keeps It

The White House blocked $810 million in funding three days before the fiscal year ended. They called it a pocket rescission. That's what you call taking money back after Congress said you could spend it. Like your mom giving you twenty bucks for the movies then demanding eighteen back as you're walking out the door.

Pocket rescission sounds like a medical procedure nobody wants. Sir, we're going to need to perform an emergency pocket rescission. You'll be awake for this.

The maneuver drew objections. From whom? The people who thought $810 million was going somewhere specific. Adorable. You think appropriated funds work like a wedding registry. Someone scans the barcode and boom, the State Department gets new staplers.

Three days before fiscal year end is the move. Wait until everyone's cleaning out their desks and updating their fantasy football lineups. Then swipe the cash. It's the bureaucratic equivalent of stealing someone's lunch from the office fridge at 4:55 PM on Friday.

The best part? This is legal. Completely above board. The President can just decide certain appropriated funds aren't getting spent if Congress doesn't object in time. And Congress was busy doing what Congress does best. Which is nothing.

Retail traders saw this headline and immediately checked if it affected their three shares of SPY. It does not. Nothing affects your three shares of SPY except the crushing inevitability of time and theta decay. The White House could pocket rescind your entire brokerage account and your returns would stay exactly the same.

$810 million sounds like a lot until you remember the federal budget is measured in trillions. This is couch cushion money. Rounding error money. The kind of money that falls out of the Pentagon's pocket when they're buying their ninth aircraft carrier.

But sure, let's all pretend this matters because it happened near the fiscal year deadline and someone filed an objection that'll get read by nobody and filed in a cabinet next to Jimmy Hoffa.

Photo by Gabriel Tovar on Unsplash