The Trump administration’s attacks on federal funding have escalated over first 100 days

Since President Trump’s day one executive orders “pausing” funding appropriated by Congress, his attacks on federal funding and potential violations of the Impoundment Control Act have only escalated. In January CREW sent a letter to congressional leadership urging Congress to both investigate withholdings by the executive branch and ensure that the Trump administration complies with the law—including the ICA, appropriations laws and the law requiring that the Office of Management and Budget (“OMB”) publicly post apportionments of appropriated funds. But the administration has yet to send a special message under the ICA, has continued its attempts to unilaterally slash federal spending and has stopped complying with the apportionment transparency requirement (which CREW has sued to enforce).

Within Trump’s first week in office, his administration kicked its unilateral cuts of federal funding into high gear. First, OMB issued a memo that ordered all agencies to “temporarily pause all activities related to obligation or disbursement of all Federal financial assistance.” Although OMB rescinded the memo following litigation and significant public outcry, the freeze continued to impact states and organizations across the country.

Countless other attacks on congressionally authorized and funded programs followed. Within a month, the administration started dismantling USAID and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, threatened to withhold funds for sanctuary cities, announced over $900 million in terminated grants and contracts at the Department of Education, directed agencies to withhold funds from schools, ordered OMB to prohibit or condition spending by independent regulatory agencies and set in motion funding cuts for medical research. 

Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Committee Rosa DeLauro and Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee Patty Murray have estimated that the administration has—at a minimum—blocked “at least $430 billion dollars in funding.” 

As CREW’s letter to Congress explains, “it is impossible to catalogue the universe of funds, programs, entities and individuals affected by the president’s directives to pause, cut or condition funding over the past 100 days: The breadth and speed of the administration’s actions are extraordinary.”

The administration’s apparent disregard for the funding levels set by Congress strips Congress of its power of the purse and sets the stage for the administration to claim that it cannot carry out other laws. If Congress yields whenever the administration decides not to abide by or execute duly enacted law, then the American people effectively lose their legislative representation. 

Congress must ensure that does not happen by investigating the administration’s attempts to unilaterally cut federal spending and take action to end any violations immediately.