I was very closely watching the saga of OMB’s disastrous effort to freeze funding for a vast number of federal programs, and wrote about why it was actually revoked at New York.
This week the Trump administration set off chaos nationwide when it temporarily “paused” all federal grants and loans pending a review of which programs comply with Donald Trump’s policy edicts. The order came down in an unexpected memo issued by the Office of Management and Budget on Monday.
Now OMB has rescinded the memo without comment just as suddenly, less than a day after its implementation was halted by a federal judge. Adding to the pervasive confusion, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt immediately insisted on Wednesday that the funding freeze was still on because Trump’s executive orders on DEI and other prohibited policies remained in place. But there’s no way this actually gets implemented without someone, somewhere, identifying exactly what’s being frozen. So for the moment, it’s safe to say the funding freeze is off.
Why did Team Trump back off this particular initiative so quickly? It’s easy to say the administration was responding to D.C. district judge Loren AliKhan’s injunction halting the freeze. But then again, the administration (and particularly OMB director nominee Russell Vought) has been spoiling for a court fight over the constitutionality of the Impoundment Control Act that the proposed freeze so obviously violated. Surely something else was wrong with the freeze, aside from the incredible degree of chaos associated with its rollout, requiring multiple clarifications of which agencies and programs it affected (which may have been a feature rather than a bug to the initiative’s government-hating designers). According to the New York Times, the original OMB memo, despite its unprecedented nature and sweeping scope, wasn’t even vetted by senior White House officials like alleged policy overlord Stephen Miller.
Democrats have been quick to claim that they helped generate a public backlash to the funding freeze that forced the administration to reverse direction, as Punchbowl News explained even before the OMB memo was rescinded:
“A Monday night memo from the Office of Management and Budget ordering a freeze in federal grant and loan programs sent congressional Republicans scrambling and helped Democrats rally behind a clear anti-Trump message. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer blasted Trump as ‘lawless, destructive, cruel.’
“D.C. senator Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, warned that thousands of federal programs could be impacted, including veterans, law enforcement and firefighters, suicide hotlines, military aid to foreign allies, and more …
“During a Senate Democratic Caucus lunch on Tuesday, Schumer urged his colleagues to make the freeze “relatable” to their constituents back home, a clear play for the messaging upper hand. Schumer also plans on doing several local TV interviews today.”
In other words, the funding freeze looks like a clear misstep for an administration and a Republican Party that were walking very tall after the 47th president’s first week in office, giving Democrats a rare perceived “win.” More broadly, it suggests that once the real-life implications of Trump’s agenda (including his assaults on federal spending and the “deep state”) are understood, his public support is going to drop like Wile E. Coyote with an anvil in his paws. If that doesn’t bother Trump or his disruptive sidekick, Elon Musk, it could bother some of the GOP members of Congress expected to implement the legislative elements of the MAGA to-do list for 2025.
It’s far too early, however, to imagine that the chaos machine humming along at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue will fall silent even for a moment. OMB could very well issue a new funding-freeze memo the minute the injunction stopping the original one expires next week. If that doesn’t happen, there could be new presidential executive orders (like the ones that suspended certain foreign-aid programs and energy subsidies) and, eventually, congressional legislation. Democrats and Trump-skeptical Republicans will need to stay on their toes to keep up with this administration’s schemes and its willingness to shatter norms.
It’s true, nonetheless, that the electorate that lifted Trump to the White House for the second time almost surely wasn’t voting to sharply cut, if not terminate, the host of popular federal programs that appeared to be under the gun when OMB issued its funding freeze memo. Sooner or later the malice and the fiscal math that led to this and other efforts to destroy big areas of domestic governance will become hard to deny and impossible to rescind.
It is very simple. I can get health insurance through my employer when I retire (OK I bear the full cost). It includes pharmaceutical insurance. If this idiocy comes into force I can kiss it goodbye and welcome a half assed scheme that will cost more for less coverage.
Basically the HMOs will force anyone covered by this Medidon’tcare idiocy out of their plan and onto George’s.
Very appropriate that your link to “Non Southern Strategy” doesn’t work- because like the link it doesn’t work. Thinking in those terms is a road to nowhere- FAST.
The reason for seniors’ disenchantment is unclear, but the Gallup responses (and simple logic) suggest that seniors think that perscription drug relief should be more generous. Kerry’s predicament is that even the current modest program — conservative price tag $530 billion — will be tough to fund. A popular alternative is to force drug companies to sell their products in the US for the prices charged in Canada (presumably what Kerry means by “fighting the big drug companies.”) But it would be naive to hope that the druggies will not react by cutting expenditures on research and development, especially R&D of drugs that only a small percentage of patients will buy. If we compel the drug companies to charge Wal-Mart prices, we should not expect them to provide Sacks Fith Avenue merchandise. Of course, Congress could follow up with legislation the *encourage* R&D, with tax incentives. In my semi-education opinion, such an approach would (1) cost taxpayers more in the end than simply having the government pay the durg companies the market price for their goods; or (2) be ineffective in fostering R&D at the current robust levels; or (3) both. The old political game — chisel lots of people out of small amounts of money, hoping they don’t notice, and use the proceeds to give a highly publicised free lunch to whoever you are pandering to this month. (Note — I am well aware that the R’s do this as often as the D’s).
On spring break? Does that mean we’ll be seeing you in an upcoming “Emerging Democratic Majority Gone Wild!” video, doing unspeakable things?
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