The phrase "power of the purse" does not appear in the constitution.
The idea that the members of the board of the federal reserve are structurally very distinct from appointed members of the NLRB or the FTC is ridiculous. It is just calvinball from the fact that the conservatives like the stability offered by the fed and don't like most of the other independent agencies that do things like empower unions and fine people committing financial fraud.
No, “emanations from penumbras” is calvinball. This is simple. Article II says: “The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.”
As you note, the FTC enforces antitrust laws. Enforcement of the law is a quintessential exercise of executive power. What’s the Fed’s core function? It performs open market operations to influence the economy as a bank. Is that an exercise of executive power? Maybe. But it’s a very different question than whether the FTC exercises executive power.
Agencies like the NLRB, SEC, and others also preside over judicial action. Does the executive typically do that?
I also personally don't think that the founders were playing a joke on us when they wrote the 9th amendment.
> Agencies like the NLRB, SEC, and others also preside over judicial action.
Legally, they don’t! Nobody seriously argues Congress can create independent agencies that exercise Article III’s “judicial power.” The seeming “judicial actions” presided over by the NLRB, SEC, etc., are justified based on the theory that they are merely using court-like procedures to perform an executive function. It’s just a way of structuring an investigation and enforcement that resembles judicial procedures, but where the end result is something the executive would have the power to do anyway.
> I also personally don't think that the founders were playing a joke on us when they wrote the 9th amendment.
Can you help me understand this argument? Say I have a list of countries in Europe: Germany, France, Italy, Sweden, Norway. Then I say, “the enumeration in this list of certain countries shall not be construed to deny or disparage other countries being in Europe.” That paraphrases the 9th amendment, right? You couldn't rely on that provision to say “Denmarkistan” is a country in Europe, right? You’d need some outside evidence to prove that this country exists.
The problem with “emanations from penumbras” is that it uses the constitution itself to bootstrap a supposed privacy right that isn’t listed and isn’t supported by outside evidence. Maybe a right to privacy exists, maybe it doesn’t. But you can’t prove that by pointing to the 9th amendment.
But... they do. We just had a whole supreme court case about the structure of these proceedings within the SEC (SEC v Jarkesy). You can think that they shouldn't do this, but if your argument is "the fed performs some non-executive actions" then you need to contend with the fact that other agencies also perform some non-executive actions.