The latest piece of governing-by-fiat from our chaos agent president, which is perfectly in line with that Project 2025 he claimed not to know much about, is an immediate freeze of federal funding and grants of many kinds, which was set to take effect later today — but a federal judge has already blocked it.
The freeze, which was billed as "temporary," would leave the Office of Management and Budget in charge of "reviewing" trillions of dollars in federal grants and funding for a myriad of programs and research, to make sure that this funding matches up with Trump's racist, transphobic, and all around backward second-term agenda.
"This order is a potential five-alarm fire for nonprofit organizations and the people and communities they serve," says Diane Yentel, the chief executive of the National Council of Nonprofits, in a statement quoted by the New York Times.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta has joined with New York Attorney General Leticia James and a still-gathering coalition of other states' attorneys general in filing a lawsuit to block the administration's action, calling it "arbitrary and capricious," as well as unconstitutional.
"There is no question this policy is reckless, dangerous, illegal and unconstitutional," said James, per the Associated Press, noting that vital federal programs including Medicaid are already seeing impacts.
Referring to the latest executive order that declared the funding freeze, Bonta called it "unprecedented in scope," as well as dangerous, and he added, "I do believe that the ambiguity and confusion is deliberate and intentional."
As the Chronicle reports, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said that individuals receiving benefits like social security, welfare, and student loans would not be impacted, but Leavitt was unable to answer a question about Medicaid, which is distributed via state regulators.
Reportedly, Medicaid and Head Start portals were already inaccessible in different parts of the country.
Russ Vought, the right-wing ideologue who served as the director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) from July 2020 to January 2021, has been tapped again to run the office — and he is credited as a primary author of Project 2025. The document details how OMB can serve as the "President’s air-traffic control system with the ability and charge to ensure that all policy initiatives are flying in sync," and it asserts that OMB is the only office with the power to take this iron-fist approach, without the oversight of Congress — something that the courts are now likely to decide.
Matthew Vaeth, who is currently the acting director of OMB, writes that, "The use of Federal resources to advance Marxist equity, transgenderism, and green new deal social engineering policies is a waste of taxpayer dollars that does not improve the day-to-day lives of those we serve." Vaeth has called on all federal agencies to "complete a comprehensive analysis of all of their Federal financial assistance programs to identify programs, projects, and activities that may be implicated by any of the President’s executive orders."
"Nearly every part of our lives is impacted by federal aid," says Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell, who has signed on to the multi-state lawsuit, per the Chronicle. Campbell said her state was already having trouble drawing down $40 million in Medicaid reimbursement.
And while this freeze was going to impact people in Republican-majority states as much as it will Democratic ones, it was only Democratic lawmakers who were making noise about this Tuesday.
"The scope of this illegal action is unprecedented and could have devastating consequences across the country," said Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, in a statement. "For real people, we could see a screeching halt to resources for child care, cancer research, housing, police officers, opioid addiction treatment, rebuilding roads and bridges, and even disaster relief efforts."
And House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries referred to the action as the "Republican Rip Off," and said, "Republicans are ripping off hardworking Americans by stealing taxpayer dollars, grants and financial assistance as part of their corrupt scheme to pay off billionaire donors and wealthy corporations."
As the New York Times writes, the multi-state lawsuit "opens up another front in what will be a long legal fight led by Democrat-led states and progressive activists to stop President Trump’s aggressive second-term agenda in the federal courts."
The lawsuit, expected to be filed Tuesday afternoon, may spur quick action by a federal court, as did Trump's order last week on birthright citizenship — something guaranteed in the text of the Constitution.
"We won't sit idly by while this administration harms our families," said AG James in a tweet Tuesday morning.
Update: Before the states' lawsuit was filed, a lawsuit filed on behalf of nonprofits by Democracy Forward succeeded in getting a federal judge to order Trump's freeze to be frozen. As the Times reports, Judge Loren L. AliKhan blocked Trump's executive order from taking effect, which it was set to do at 5 pm ET today. It remains to be seen whether the Medicaid portals and other things that appeared to have already gone dark would be restored.
Photo: Michael Vadon/Wikimedia
