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Now OMB has rescinded the memo without comment just as suddenly, less than a day after its implementation was halted by a federal judge.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freeze that forced the administration to reverse direction, as Punchbowl News explained even before the OMB memo was rescinded: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.
Can someone explain why–as repeatedly reported– if Kerry leads among independents, moderates, new voters, young voters, women voters, etc, Bush has any lead at all? Aside from men voters, where is Bush’s support coming from? Thanks!
I don’t think you can trust these “tracking” polls. They’re conducted in a way that maximizes efficiency, not robust sampling. In order to reach a desirable number of completes, they simply burn through sample, meaning that they don’t make callbacks to numbers that do not answer. This greatly increases non-response bias and representativeness.
This isn’t about polls but is about post election strategy. I’m a lawyer and have done voting rights for 30 years. I have little confidence in the courts to handle the election contests in a non-partisan way. For simplicity imagine a repeat of 2000; massive voter suppression, court challenges, court rulings on partisan lines with incredible opinions. Then what? Like last time, Democrats fold up their tents and say nice non-partisan unfifying things and turn our democracy over to the anti-democracy party for four more years? Follow John Lewis to a sit-in in Washington?
ABC, Washington Post and Rasmussen all have Kerry UP in the race as of Monday.
I’d call that a good trend.
Bush’s team knows they are in trouble, which is why they are focusing on getting out their base and suppressing vote. They know they need to get all their people out AND stop Kerry voters by the hundreds of thousands, if not millions.
Evidently Zogby had a very weird polling day for Bush on Saturday. On that day, Bush had a 7 point lead. It’s a clear outlier, because no other poll is showing this type of movement in either direction. However, Zogby has also said that in the Sunday poll, Kerry was up by two points. Friday numbers will be dropped off tomorrow, so I would expect the 3% margin to either remain the same or decrease slighly. On Wednesday, though, you will see a much bigger movement towards Kerry.
I think Ruy posted below about the volatility of the daily tracking polls and how they can have wild swings. If that’s what you mean, scroll down.
As Steve Soto points out at the Left Coaster, this is actually even better news than it seems. The internals of the current Gallup sample show that it is even more biased in favor of Republicans, but yet Bush’s lead went down! More Republicans, less support! Yow, that’s gotta hurt.
Zogby posted their one day results for Friday and Saturday nights. Bush took Friday 49-46, Bush also took Saturday 50-43. However, the three day rolling average for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday has Bush up 48-45. This means that Kerry took Sunday 46-45. Let’s give the poll at least two more days to flush the 49 and 50 out of the rolling average. Then we’ll see how good the President-select is doing.
Btw, WP has Kerry up 49-48 and Rasmussen has Kerry up 48-46. Gallup has Bush up by only 1 point among registered voters, with Kerry up by 2 in the Battleground States.
What was the party ID breakdown? Steve Soto has a post up, and says that Ruy Teixeira contacted him with a correction of sorts, but Soto doesn’t explain what the correction is. Can Mr. Teixeira clue us in? (Soto, at “The LEft Coaster,” has a post up saying Gallup’s party IDs are even worse than before, but then has an update — based on Teixeira — which seems to question his own post.)
I am scratching my head over some of the internals on the recentl polls. Zogby has Bush
leading among Independents by 12%. CBS
and Gallup according to this latest poll have
Kerry up by 5% by Independents. The only
explanation I can think of for this anamoly is
sampling error or respondents are making up
answers to all of the poll calls. They must be
getting tired of the calls. I am a political junkie
and I am growing wearing of these polls
What’s up with Zogby? Are they still weighting according to 2000 exit polls (democrat advantage in sample)? If so, shouldn’t their current numbers be cause for concern?
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thats what i thought but then i looked up the 2000 poll of 9 days before the election and it showed the same 3 point bush lead that we see now.
It doesnt mean anything, its all within the margin of error.
I have the same concerns as chillmoth. Gallup is one thing, but Zogby is a more reliable organization, and they have Bush pulling ahead. Is there any reason not to be troubled by this, aside from the 50% rule which Zogby says might not be in play this year?
Gallup?
I call them Foul-up.
They’re doing the same thing they did four years ago. They’re showing Bush up, but they will close it to 2-3 points in a week and act like that makes up for bogus reports the past 3 months.
Both Kerry and Castor pull ahead in Florida.
http://www.surveyusa.com/currentelectionpolls.html
Sometimes poll respondents are reluctant to express their true opinion.
1) They are talking to a stranger who may not be a legitimate pollster. Few people have heard of more than a few of the 20+ national polling organizations.
2) There may be someone else in the room listening, a person not sharing their opinion.
3) There is a reluctance to “go negative” on an an incumbent President. Especially if one is uncertain about who is calling.
In most urban areas. It is easy to acknowledge support of Democrats, even Nader. But in a suburban or rural community, it can invite unwanted attention if supporting anyone other than the Republicans.
The ballot is secret, but in telephone polling, Democrat support may be understated.
What’s up with Zogby? Are they still weighting according to 2000 exit polls (democrat advantage in sample)? If so, shouldn’t their current numbers be cause for concern?