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Now OMB has rescinded the memo without comment just as suddenly, less than a day after its implementation was halted by a federal judge.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freeze that forced the administration to reverse direction, as Punchbowl News explained even before the OMB memo was rescinded: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.
An E-mail I got last week announced that the Democratic Party had “gone on offense” on national security. I was glad to read that and even sent them a few bucks. However, Democrats still haven’t caught on completely to what “offense” is. Carl Hulse’s article says Democrats have been advised to respond. Responding isn’t the same as going on offense. The Democrats plan to attack some of Bush’s failures and offer an alternative defense strategy. That’s competing, but not fully attacking. Offense is when one goes directly at his opponents position and the opponents position becomes the central issue. Offense is taking place when the opponent is on defense. To truly go on offense,the Democrats must attack Bush’s plan for his “war on terror.”
The Bush plan for his “war on terrorism” is beyond extreme and all the way through insane. Bush plans to install democracies in every country where terrorists might live. To do this, Bush is willing to prosecute a century of consecutive wars. Bush isn’t worried that the lives and money lost in the wars will exceed by numerous multiples anything the terrorists might do to us if we do nothing and leave our doors wide open. Bush isn’t worried about all the terrorism a century of wars might provoke. That’s because Bush is convinced that at the end of the century, the future Muslims of the Middle East will be so grateful for the democracy we’ll give them that they’ll overlook how we bombed their theocracy loving grandparents to get it. Bush believes they’ll be so grateful that they won’t want to attack the US anymore. That’s when Bush believes his “war on terrorism” will be a success. Our president has lost his mind.
Bush keeps saying Iraq is part of the war on terror. Democrats, ever on defense, insist that its not. Bush won’t say what exactly the “war on terror” is. Since Bush won’t define it, why don’t the Democrats define it for him? Yes, Iraq is part of the war on terror, and the 100 year crusade is Bush’s plan for the war on terrorism. Would the public like 100 years worth of Iraq wars? Let Bush defend scheme.
I haven’t heard a single Democrat talk about Bush’s war plan. Bush’s idea is so insane I can’t find a poll on it anywhere. America is pretending Bush’s idea doesn’t exist. And the Republicans get away with never mentioning Bush’s plan and instead are on offense calling we on the net and our favorite party “extremists.”
A quick analogy to Bush’s plan would be to try to keep your house safe by sending cops everywhere in the world to catch every burglar, and eliminating every social condition that might make someone want to become a burglar, and meanwhile, leaving your doors unlocked and all your money in cash on the dining room table. Democrats want go after terrorists and the countries that sponsor terrorist attacks. Democrats just want to lock the doors and put the cash in the bank too. The Democratic approach should be sold as a more rational and more effective approach. Effectiveness means future safety. Its time to go on offense.