Donald Trump faced a sharp reaction to a plan to freeze the payment of hundreds of billions of dollars of domestic federal spending on Tuesday, forcing the White House to clarify that the purpose of the mass was closer than scared.
In an aggressive action to reduce and regulate the government spending less than two weeks in its second term, the US president’s administration issued a comprehensive Memorandum for Congress by ordering a pause in federal financial aid, due to entry into Power at 5am in Washington.
Suspension in federal financial aid is intended to give the White House officials approximating grants and loans with Trump’s policies and its conservative agenda.
But it caused a broad outbreak of two -party confusion and opposition, as Republicans and Democrats were captured with the extent of immediate cuts that would impose funds from scientific and medical research and hit communities across the country that depend heavily on federal support.
Governors, lawyers of the General State and Congress lawmakers were trying to understand how much measures would financially affect their elections, their businesses and their states. The US state receives federal grants, which estimated 36.4 percent, or 1.1tn $, from the combined income of 50 states in fiscal 2022, according to the Pew Research Center.
On Tuesday afternoon, with the hours left before the deadline, the White House was forced to issue a second memorandum to lawmakers explaining that social programs such as Medicaid, health insurance scheme for low -income Americans, and Snap, one Food aid program, you will not stop.
The second memo added that the funds would not freeze for other important schemes, such as those supporting small businesses, farmers and university students. The White House officials also said social security, government and media pension scheme, government health care plan for older people, would be intact.
Despite the White House efforts to contain confusion, the Democrats explode it as an illegal capture by the president who opposed the constitutional role of lawmakers in spending approval and warned that it would potentially harm the US economy.
“The freezing of the federal funds that has already been allocated by the Congress is unconstitutional; above all, it is inhumane,” Dick Durbin, the Democratic Senator from Illinois, said.
Two elderly Democrats, Patty Murray and Rosa Delauro, wrote by Matthew Vaet, the director of the management and budget office, saying: “Extension of what you are ordering is staggering, unprecedented and will have devastating consequences on it the whole country. “
State officials across the country, including Republicans, demanded clarity and flexibility from the administration in the review.
Luiziana Governor Jeff Landry, a determined conservative, asked him to “develop a responsible runway to avoid us from any unnecessary and savage policy without endangering the financial stability of the state”.
More than 50 percent of Luiziana’s income came from federal funds in fiscal year 2022 – more than for any other country, according to Pew.
A group of 23 state lawyers led by California and New York said they will file a lawsuit seeking to block the implementation of the freezing, “citing immediate damage to their states, which relate to billions in fundamental funding for the administration of life programs ”, according to the Office of the Prosecutor General of California.
Medicaid online portal used by states stopped working on Tuesday, which the White House said he was aware. Karoline Leavitt, Secretary of the White House press, told X that “no payment has been affected.”
The president’s measure was initially announced on Monday as the last in a series of executive actions by the President to force civil service and government agencies to approximate his policies.
It comes after Trump ordered the ban on new funds for clean energy projects. The State Department has also begun implementing a pause for all foreign aids pending a review if it refractions with its administration plans.
“Using federal resources to advance Marxist capital, transgenderism and new green social engineering policies is a loss of taxpayers’ dollars that do not improve the daily lives of those we serve,” the first memorandum said.
The administration told agencies to submit information about the grants and their loans to the White House until February 10, which means that many programs will be in limbo until at least. The administration said the US spent $ 3TN in the 2024 fiscal year on federal financial aid, but it is unclear how much it would eventually be shortened.
A radical reconstruction of the Federal Government has long been requested by Russell Vought, the election of the President to be Director of the White House budget, and the authors of the 2025 project, a Republican administration plan in recent years from the Heritage Foundation, an Mendo-Tank conservative.
Trump distanced himself from the 2025 project during the election campaign against Joe Biden and Kamala Harris last year, as many of his recipes were very controversial, but some of his policies are emerging in his first executive actions.
Jeff Merkley, the Supreme Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee and other party leaders demanded a delay in the vote to confirm the cost of spending and their legality.
