The White House Management and Budget Office has put a temporary hold on all federal grants and loans starting today so that the Trump Administration can review spending that was approved during the Biden Administration.
The freeze impacts the trillions of taxpayer dollars that the government gives to states for nonprofits, health, health research, and student loan programs.
The main concerns the Administration has are wasteful use of taxpayer dollars, Marxist programs, and the weaponization of government against Americans.
“Financial assistance should be dedicated to advancing Administration priorities, focusing taxpayer dollars to advance a stronger and safer America, eliminating the financial burden of inflation for citizens, unleashing American energy and manufacturing ending ‘wokeness’ and the weaponization of government, promoting efficiency in government, and Making America Healthy Again. 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,” the memo from Matthew J. Vaeth, acting director of the Office of Management and Budget, states.
The memo directs agencies to conduct a comprehensive analysis to ensure grants and loans are consistent with Trump’s executive orders to end discriminatory hiring programs known as “diversity, equity and inclusion,” and to scale back the spending on things like wind turbines, which have a low return on investment for energy.
The memo carves out exemptions for Social Security and Medicare recipients and the temporary hold does not include assistance provided directly to individuals.
Medicaid, however, is impacted, since Medicaid is being used to pay for genital mutilation surgeries and hormone medications and other drugs for the transgender population that qualifies for such aid.
In fiscal year 2022, Alaska received $2.6 billion in Medicaid funding. Tribes in Alaska receive hundreds of millions of dollars that are, for now, not flowing to their bank accounts.
Democratic New York Attorney General Letitia James is suing the Trump administration to prevent any pause in the flow of dollars to New York
“My office will be taking imminent legal action against this administration’s unconstitutional pause on federal funding,” she said on X/Twitter.
In addition to a pause in grants in order to review misuse of funds, some of the Deep State career bureaucrats who are not complying with the president’s executive orders are being cleaned out.
Several senior staffers at the U.S. Agency for International Development were placed on immediate administrative leave after they failed to comply with an executive order halting certain types of foreign aid.
Jason Gray, acting director of USAID, wrote in an email to staff that he had “identified several actions within USAID that appear to be designed to circumvent the President’s Executive Order and the mandate from the American people. As a result, we have placed a number of USAID employees on administrative leave with full pay and benefits until further notice while we complete our analysis of these actions.”
