Re-read the passage you cited:
"The President may temporarily withhold funds from obligation—but not beyond the end of the fiscal year in which the President transmits the special message—by proposing a “deferral.”4 2 U.S.C. § 684."
Another explanation from the House Budget Committee: the deferral cannot extend beyond the end of the fiscal year in which the special message is sent
When the president does not want to CANCEL the spending but anticipates the spending might span into the next fiscal year, then he would send a request to defer the spending into the next period.
That sounds reasonable except for the explicit language that prevents deferrals into the next fiscal year.
It is HIS authority that things are spent under, not some bureaucrat.
Huh. And all these years I've been taught that Congress had the power of the purse.
CONGRESS HAS NO ROLE except to vote funds.
I hope you'll excuse me if I want my elected Representatives to have some oversight on how my tax dollars are spent.
Good job repeating the talking point from the GAO memo. If you were paying attention in class, or ever did any business with the government, you would realize that people in the Executive Branch are responsible for doling out money from the "purse" and that they routinely exercise discretion in doing so.
If you didn't complete the job you can't expect to get the check. If the government finds out that you are, for example, a doctor filing false claims for medicare payments you don't get the check. The departments responsible for those kinds of efforts is in the Executive Branch.
Ask yourself a question. If Congress budgeted funds for a new police station in Mosul Iraq should the US government have sent the money to Mosul after it fell to ISIS? I think you know the answer is "no".
The Executive Branch has plenty of leeway to adjust the timing of payments, or even withhold them, based on its decisions that are taken as it implements the spending authorized by Congress.