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Now OMB has rescinded the memo without comment just as suddenly, less than a day after its implementation was halted by a federal judge.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freeze that forced the administration to reverse direction, as Punchbowl News explained even before the OMB memo was rescinded: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.
I agree with Steve’s comments. I know from experience that, while I am not especially a liberal, I am not what they could loosely call a conservative, and therefore not one of them. They seem to be able to make that judgment about me in about 5 minutes. I can feel the sharp eyes watching me. I do not make the correct coded responses that they all seem to know. I don’t know the correct responses even though I grew up in a very fundamentalist church. Now there are politically oriented coded responses that must be passed. I don’t make it. They will be polite and easy-going to your face for a short while, but once you’ve shown your colors, then the shading starts: how far out are you, how far out am I willing to go. When they find out that I am not willing to play their authority game, then, I’m out.
The Christian Right are deadly serious about their agenda. I’m not that sure about how they stand with the GOP any more, though I think they still have their eyes on the levers of power. I think W & Cheney has taken them into uncharted waters, but the authoritarianism is not the brand they wanted.
Make no mistake about it, the game is one of authority. Power might be a side element, but if they have the authority to make you respond, you can be saved again, and you will submit to a particular personal power as directed by their representative of God.
Thank you. It was a good entry with some excellent points.
“….also offered a reminder that most conservative white evangelical Protestant Americans are kind, decent, well-adjusted people who (whatever their voting habits) don’t really reflect the angry views of some of their self-appointed political leaders.”
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You’re being far too generous as to “everyday, commonfolk” religious conservatives in the U.S. Yes, at a funeral or picnic or wedding interacting with them may seem a pleasant if not innocuous event. Smiles, handshakes, “Howya doing?” get traded. Even more in-depth discussions about life might not see you getting consigned to hell for being the degenerate “you don’t belong to the right religion (or no religion)” person you are. However, these same people fervently want leaders ensconced in office pledging to enact laws enforcing a moral code in line with their conservative beliefs. Homosexual marriage is to be banned. Even homosexual relations are to be banned or criminalized. Abortion is to be outlawed. Prayer (Christian prayer) is to be allowed if not outright encouraged in public schools. The federal and state governments are to pay for or subsidize private, religiously leaning schools. Many believe God says the enviroment, plants and animals are there to be plundered for the pleasure and needs of humans and therefore laws restricting or preserving them are contrary to God’s will. Jews and other non-Christians are going to hell. This tenet is sacrosanct. No Jesus, no afterlife. No, amend that, you get some sort of afterlife. It’s just one wherein you twist and writhe in the fires of Hell or linger about in some sort of nothingness forever regretting rejecting Billy Graham. No, I wouldn’t mistake a few hours of interplay with a crowd of cordial, devout Christians as indicative of their willingness to allow everyone to just be left alone. Over Cokes and chips you are silently being judged. And given absolute control of the levers of power you will bend to their vision of morality and execution of public policy controlling it.