President Trump’s budget team ordered a temporary pause on certain types of “federal financial assistance” spending besides Social Security, Medicare and other select programs pending a review.
The sweeping halt, which encompasses programs that President Trump has targeted via executive order including foreign aid, was blocked by a DC federal judge just before it was set to go into effect Tuesday at 5 p.m. — the first salvo of a legal showdown over the extent of a president’s powers to spend or not spend money appropriated by Congress.
The number of programs affected and the exact amount of funding at stake is unclear because the memo from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) was rife with carveouts subjecting the freeze to what is “permissible under applicable law” and allowing for exemptions on a “case-by-case basis.”
Trump is doing the right thing by pausing the out of control grants and loans from the federal government. Lots and lots of this money is being misappropriated. Surely it needs reining in.