The acting director of the White House Office of Management and Budget sent confusion rippling through agencies in Washington with a directive to effectively halt all federal funding “temporarily” until further review.
Read the memo pausing federal funding for yourself here:
pausing federal fundingFrom The Washington Post:
The White House budget office is ordering a pause to all grants and loans disbursed by the federal government, according to an internal memo sent to agencies Monday, creating significant confusion across Washington.
In a two-page document, Matthew J. Vaeth, the acting director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, instructs federal agencies to “temporarily pause all activities related to obligations or disbursement of all Federal financial assistance.” The memo, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Post, also calls for each agency to perform a “comprehensive analysis” to ensure its grant and loan programs are consistent with President Donald Trump’s executive orders, which aimed to ban federal diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, and limit clean energy spending, among other measures.
The memo states its orders should not be “construed” to impact Social Security or Medicare recipients, and also says the federal financial assistance put on hold “does not include assistance provided directly to individuals.”
But the document says programs affected are “including, but not limited to, financial assistance for foreign aid, nongovernmental organizations, DEI, woke gender ideology, and the green new deal.”
The order may impact at least tens of billions of dollars in payments, said Brian Riedl, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a center-right think tank.
The memo also states that of the $10 trillion “that the Federal Government spent [in fiscal year 2024, which ended Sept. 30, 2024], more than $3 trillion was Federal financial assistance, such as grants and loans.” It was not immediately clear where those figures came from; the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says the government spent $6.7 trillion in the 2024 fiscal year.
A person familiar with the order, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe confidential decisions, confirmed the accuracy of the document and said it applied to all grants. The memo goes into effect Tuesday. The agencies are also required to submit detailed lists of projects suspended under the new order by Feb. 10. Federal agencies must assign “responsibility and oversight” to tracking the federal spending to a senior political appointee, not a career official, the memo states.
“The funding delays are going to prove very difficult for grantees under the impression the money is coming, and have rent and salary payments dependent upon it,” Riedl said. “It seems like a very big deal.”
The memo was reported earlier Monday by journalist Marisa Kabas.
People are linking to various grants and services provided by a bunch of NGOs that have now had the spigot turned off.
Some of the grants and services provided sound sketch. Like, “that’s a strawman!” sketch.Report
Some of them don’t, but are taking the most stringent possible interpretation of whether or not they “provide aid directly to individuals”.
Like, food banks are saying “we take the grant money and use it to buy food, so our funding doesn’t technically go directly to individuals, so, we’re assuming that we can’t do that now, sorry Trump I guess you shoulda wrote your memo better”Report
This would appear to affect Pell Grants and Federal Student Loans. It is also probably against Federal Law because Congress already apportioned the money but Vought has decided the President can do what he pleases with the Treasury and they are still in Blitzkreig mode to try and get people to bend the knee.Report
Against Federal Law, you say?
I imagine that stuff that breaks Federal Law ought to be prevented, wouldn’t you agree?Report
What it affects is going to ultimately be up to OMB. I don’t see any indication that it affects Pell Grants, or funds to states generally, yet, but it’s vague enough that OMB could shut down anything it wants, so anyone, from contractors to states to individuals, who receives any sort of federal grant money, should definitely be paying close attention.Report
I say this with the understanding that this is likely to be a disaster with all kinds of bad intended and crazy unintended consequences but…. it has been years and years now that totally reasonable people have been saying that the universities to remove these tumors. They refused to go under the scalpel so now they’re getting full force radiation, maybe even napalm.Report
“You guys were serious about that?”Report
This reminds me very much of something I was just reading this morning:
https://defector.com/the-ghosts-of-new-atheism-still-haunt-usReport
It was an interesting piece but he lost me a bit at the end on trying to draw a parallel between Israel/Palestine and related activism and the transgender topic. I very much understand the critique of New Atheism, and the concept of “reality” (or the “Science” or whatever) as opposed to reality itself being used as a political cudgel in tribalistic or highly partisan ways, and particularly in ways that paper over or distract from the actual important questions at issue.
But I wasn’t convinced by the suggestion that odd political bedfellows is itself dispositive on substantive questions about Israel’s military strategy and the civilian death involved, or who ‘wins’ in a debate about whether, IDK, Carole Hooven still gets to teach human biology courses despite the content being upsetting to those with strong commitments to a particular set of abstractions about (the mutability of) sex. He also says humans have changed sex before which technically speaking has never happened.Report
It really is amazing to watch how many people here have had their brains completely fried by complaining about transgender people, apparently having never interacted with any of them.Report
Did you read the essay in the link?Report
No, but what does that have to do with the last sentence of what you said? That sentence clearly is your own opinion.Report
No, it’s just a fact. It’s never happened. Maybe one day technology will be such that it does but as of today it can’t.
Anyway I mentioned it because he literally says in the piece people have changed their sex. But you need to actually read it if you want to talk more about the larger point he is trying to make.Report
Correct me if I’m wrong David but aren’t you conflating sex and gender?Report
LOL. “woke gender ideology” Idiocracy wasn’t supposed to happen for another 500 years.Report
How weird is it that we’re now being governed by terminally online people?Report
Yeah, it’s weird that we’re only just now being governed like this. For the first time.Report
True. This is DJT’s 2nd term.Report
Ignoring Jay’s BSDI, I think one of the differences in Trump Volume II is how many terminally online people he has in prominent positions, including Musk himself. Sure, there were some of them in Volume I, but most of his major people were more old school (and more old). It’s probably also a recognition that a large portion of their supporters are so dialed in to right wing media and social media that “woke gender ideology” and “Marxist equity” are perfectly narrowly tailored phrases.Report
I had that same thought. They’ve had 4 fallow years to marinate in Truth Social nonsense and now they’re bringing it to bear.Report
BSDI is not a particularly interesting counter-argument to “this exists”.
it is, however, a decent rejoinder to “this is unprecedented!”Report
It’s only a relevant counter if you can give equivalent examples. Then sure, we quibble over their equivalence, but at least we’ve got something to quibble over. Simply saying “both sides do it” is not really a counter at all, it’s the wave of a hand.Report
From Benny Drama back in 2021 to the Biden Influencer party back in August of 2024 (seriously, that got a *LOT* of “what the hell, guys?” from even lefties on Twitter), I’m not sure what you’re looking for wrt the whole “terminally online” thing.
Would Kamala’s ALCU questionnaire count as being terminally online?
I’m honestly kind of taken aback that you’d ask for examples instead of going for “well, nevertheless, this time it’s *BAD* terminally online.”Report
OK, a Biden party influence is different from an official memo, silly as it was.
I don’t know Harris’ ACLU questionnaire, but could you just post some quick examples from it that you think are equivalent to an official memo saying “Marxist equity” or “woke gender ideology”?Report
It was the stuff she said about gender transitioning for prisoners. Remember the ad that Trump made? The stuff you said “but she didn’t *RUN* on that!” about?Report
Ah yeah, I didn’t remember where she said that stuff, but now I vaguely do. I’m still not quite sure how that’s equivalent to “woke gender ideology,” or an official memo, but you’ve brought an example, and I suspect we’re simply not going to agree on their equivalence, so I’ll leave it an acknowledgement that you at least brought a relevant counter.Report
I wrote a post about Harris misinfo that relied on Harris footage.Report
Oh wait, I think I see where the source of our disagreement lies: you think her having ideas that were very popular among Sanders’ voters, but not the mainstream of either party, is a sign that she’s terminally online, whereas I’m saying using online terminology like “woke gender ideology” is. The policy of opposing programs or grants or whatever that promote views of gender the Trump administration doesn’t like, while bad, is not in itself a sign of terminal onlineness, nor is opposition to social safety net policies, but calling these things “woke gender ideology” and “Marxist equity” are.
The liberal equivalent might be her saying, “1312” in a memo suspending funding for police, or “eat the rich” in a press release about increasing taxes for the 1%.Report
I may have given the wrong impression if you think that I think that Harris thinks anything.
It is her handlers and staffers that are terminally online.
(For example, the ones who said she shouldn’t go on Rogan.)Report
I’m sure they are, but for better or worse, we’ll never know whether they would have used the “I am once again asking you” meme in an official memo.Report
what’s the use of bringing you rocks when you’ve decided that you prefer sticks?Report
I think you’re right about that and I’m curious to see how the more online people in the administration respond or if they can even survive contact with planet Normie. The Democrats aren’t the only people capable of doing things that don’t make sense to people that aren’t on Twitter-X.
But that’s kind of always been Trump’s biggest underlying flaw. He is a meme but you can’t master our institutions by being a meme, and he has no apparent talent for mastering them. Hence the default to ‘things Republicans have wanted since 1992, maybe even 1982’ whenever it comes to trying to create lasting reforms via legislation.Report
That’s probably why we’re getting this absolute firehose of nonsense.
A) Its an attempt to overload that gatekeepers, as if they can somehow outrun the number of people and organizations that’ll file suit to stop their antics.
B) Its an attempt to rule by meme.
C) It’s a distraction from the actual Republican central business as usual of cutting taxes on the wealthy while slashing programs for the poor which is slogging along in congress.Report
Yea, like last time with Trump, the staying power of this stuff is pretty questionable. Let’s assume for a minute there is a real interest in civil service reform (lol I know but bear with me). You’d be trying to do that through the legislative process where you have a majority, not sending out mass decrees to try to scatter shot scare people into resigning, totally agnostic to the fact that it’s going to be caught up in the courts. I have gotten texts from a few people I know in government about this, one of whom is in the kind of auditing role even a conservative would theoretically see value in.
To the extent there’s any silver lining for my personal politics it’s that I do think these silly diversity and DEI bureaucracies that have sprung up in universities shouldn’t have public money. And if Trump or the DOJ bully some of the more ridiculous offenders using the letter of civil rights statutes as they actually exist then, well, they had it coming. I also think rescinding the affirmative action EO was at this point the right thing to do and I think long term it will be good for our side. It’s time for a debate on whether this is something that really makes sense anymore rather than simultaneously knee jerk defending the status quo while still trying to placate the activist minority insisting both that the old paradigm is actually a sham and that nothing will ever be enough.Report
There’s reliable reporting he managed to shut off Medicaid and Headstart.Report
There was a story in the Chicago Sun-Times to that effect. Kinda mindboggling.Report
Medicaid funds have been interrupted before. Recall how Medicaid works. The client receives care. The provider bills the state. After some delay, the state pays the bill. The documented payments are aggregated and submitted to Washington. After some delay, the feds reimburse the state for a portion of their expenses. States have buffers and reserve funds built into their cash flows to handle an interruption.
Note that Trump attempted to stop disbursement of appropriated funds. He didn’t change any of what we called “substantive legislation” when I worked for my state legislature. State Medicaid agencies are still on the hook to pay providers within certain performance guidelines. Failure to do so carries financial penalties of various sorts. I’m sure that all of the Governors have already called their Senators and screamed at them.Report
An administrative judge has stayed the EO until at least next Monday.
https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-pause-federal-grants-aid-f9948b9996c0ca971f0065fac85737ceReport
It’s worth pointing out that in a sane country, this would have immediately started impeachment proceeding.
If the birthright citizenship EO hadn’t already started impeachment.
There are illegal things Trump is doing that are possibly arguable in court, if you have toast for brains, but both birthright citizenship(1) and executive impoundment of funds have been _directly_ addressed by the courts and are not even debatable. One of them is a constitutional violation and the other is flatly illegal under US law, and both of them are very very obviously things a president should be impeached for doing.
In fact, we already impeached Trump for doing the first thing.
1) A bunch of people are going to try to argue that the courts have not addressed whether or not the children of people in the country illegally are citizen, and that such people might be part of an ‘invasion’, a completely bogus claim that is nonsense but arguably hasn’t been tried in court before.
But sadly for that logic, Trump’s EO _also_ included the children of people here on temporary visas. A person who cannot, in any possible way, be argued to be part of an invasion.Report
NSF post docs are not getting paid.
CDC is apparently removing access to data collected by taxpayers.
Good times.Report