Opinion | Robert Rubin, Lawrence Summers, Timothy Geithner, Jacob Lew, Janet Yellen: DOGE Is a Threat to U.S. Democracy.

When we had the honor of being sworn in as the 70th, 71st, 75th, 76th and 78th secretaries of the Treasury, we took an oath to support and defend the United States Constitution.

Our roles were multifaceted. We sought to develop sound policy to advance the president’s agenda and represent the economic interests of the United States on the world stage. But in doing that, we recognized that our most fundamental responsibility was the faithful execution of the laws and Constitution of the United States.

We were fortunate that during our tenures in office no effort was made to unlawfully undermine the nation’s financial commitments. Regrettably, recent reporting gives substantial cause for concern that such efforts are underway today.

The nation’s payment system has historically been operated by a very small group of nonpartisan career civil servants. In recent days, that norm has been upended, and the roles of these nonpartisan officials have been compromised by political actors from the so-called Department of Government Efficiency. One has been appointed fiscal assistant secretary — a post that for the prior eight decades had been reserved exclusively for civil servants to ensure impartiality and public confidence in the handling and payment of federal funds.

These political actors have not been subject to the same rigorous ethics rules as civil servants, and one has explicitly retained his role in a private company, creating at best the appearance of financial conflicts of interest. They lack training and experience to handle private, personal data — like Social Security numbers and bank account information. Their power subjects America’s payments system and the highly sensitive data within it to the risk of exposure, potentially to our adversaries. And our critical infrastructure is at risk of failure if the code that underwrites it is not handled with due care. That is why a federal judge this past weekend blocked, at least temporarily, these individuals from the Treasury’s payments system, noting the risk of “irreparable harm.”

While significant data privacy, cybersecurity and national security threats are gravely concerning, the constitutional issues are perhaps even more alarming. We take the extraordinary step of writing this piece because we are alarmed about the risks of arbitrary and capricious political control of federal payments, which would be unlawful and corrosive to our democracy.

A key component of the rule of law is the executive branch’s commitment to respect Congress’s power of the purse: The legislative branch has the sole authority to pass laws that determine where and how federal dollars should be spent.

The role of the Treasury Department — and of the executive branch more broadly — is not to make determinations about which promises of federal funding made by Congress it will keep, and which it will not. As Justice Brett Kavanaugh of the Supreme Court previously wrote, “Even the president does not have unilateral authority to refuse to spend the funds.” Chief Justice John Roberts agrees: He wrote that “no area seems more clearly the province of Congress than the power of the purse.”

During our collective 18 years at the helm of the Treasury, we never were asked to stop congressionally appropriated funds from being paid out in full. Not since the Nixon administration has this type of executive action been contemplated. At that time, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the president did not have the power to withhold federal funds that Congress had authorized.

The Trump administration may seek to change the law and alter what spending Congress appropriates, as administrations before it have done as well. And should the law change, it will be the role of the executive branch to execute those changes. But it is not for the Treasury Department or the administration to decide which of our congressionally approved commitments to fulfill and which to cast aside.

No Treasury secretary in his or her first weeks in office should be put in the position where it is necessary to reassure the nation and the world of the integrity of our payments system or our commitment to make good on our financial obligations.

Secretary Scott Bessent has had to do just that, and we were comforted to see the agency commit to Congress that any recent access to Treasury’s payment systems “is not resulting in the suspension or rejection of any payment instructions submitted” to the federal government. When he has been asked — repeatedly — if Treasury has tried to block any federal payments, he has stated unequivocally that “we have not.”

We hope this commitment stands. It is how the framers intended it when they designed a government with checks and balances that gave the executive branch a host of powers, but provided for elected members of Congress, and Congress alone, the authority to levy taxes and spend federal funds.

Many people and entities depend on Treasury’s faithful disbursement of federal funds: Social Security checks arrive each month. Veterans receive their benefits. Medicare providers are reimbursed. Federal workers, members of the military and businesses that provide goods and services to the government are all paid on time and in full. Holders of outstanding federal debt receive interest payments.

People often rely on these funds for survival, making any risk of their cutoff or delay existential. But even more than the importance of making good on particular commitments is the importance of making good on the principles that this country stands for. We have during our service in the Treasury Department faced moments of crisis, when the specter of an American default loomed. Any hint of the selective suspension of congressionally authorized payments will be a breach of trust and ultimately, a form of default. And our credibility, once lost, will prove difficult to regain.