Shortly after taking office, President Donald Trump, quite sensibly, paused some federal spending programs to see whether they are lawful and advance America’s interests, which he had promised voters he would do. That temporary delay, however, set off a firestorm among the liberal states and organizations that, as recent disclosures have revealed, have benefited immensely and unjustifiably from the government’s largesse.
Some states and the District of Columbia convinced a federal district judge to temporarily block Trump’s spending pause, arguing (quite hyperbolically) that the pause would irreparably harm “the social fabric of life” in their jurisdictions.
In just a few days, and without full briefs from the parties, Chief Judge John McConnell of the District of Rhode Island concluded that this spending pause was unlawful, because no statute authorizes the president to delay the disbursement of congressionally appropriated funds, the pause was arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act, and it is unconstitutional because Congress has the spending power, not the president.
On Jan. 31, McConnell ordered the Trump administration not to “pause, freeze, impede, block, cancel, or terminate” any grants to the states “except on the basis of the applicable authorizing statutes.” McConnell also seemed to extend his order beyond the states that sued and barred the administration from pausing any “federal financial assistance programs” that the administration had previously paused. The order is not an exemplar of clarity, so McConnell’s precise intent is unknowable.
A few days later, the states filed an emergency motion complaining, among other things, that the administration was still pausing the distribution of grants to certain nonparties to their suit, like Brown University and the University of Washington.
Just three days after that, and again without full briefing, McConnell granted the motion and clarified that he did, indeed, mean to stop the administration from “any federal funding pause.” His order applied not only to any recipient of federal funds (not just the states that sued), but it also prevented all departments, agencies, and institutes within the federal government from pausing funding as well (even if they had not been sued).
Trump responded by saying, “When a president can’t look for fraud and waste and abuse, we don’t have a country anymore.”
Much of what the Department of Government Efficiency has revealed about government spending during just its first few weeks investigating the government’s books underscores his point.
Besides $100 million for diversity, equity, and inclusion programs from the Department of Education, DOGE has found that the United States Agency for International Development has spent millions on “LGBTQI+” in Guatemala and Serbia, a DEI musical in Ireland, a “transgender” opera in Colombia, and “transgender” comic books in Peru. […]
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