Memo: All Federal Grant, Loan, and Financial Assistance “Temporarily Paused”

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:

From 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.