The White House has rescinded a two-page memo issued by the Trump administration that called for a broad pause in federal funding – a move which would have halted potentially USD 3 trillion (EUR 2.8 trillion) in funding.
A memo released by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) called for a “temporary pause of agency grant, loan, and other financial assistance programs” which would have taken effect at 5 p.m. EST 28 January. The memo said it was meant to impact programs that may have been implicated by Trump’s earlier executive orders, “including but not limited to, financial assistance for foreign aid, nongovernmental organizations, DEI, woke gender ideology, and the green new deal.”
Soon after the pause was announced, the New York Times reported a coalition of states was filing a lawsuit to block the order. A lawsuit was also filed by nonprofit Democracy Forward, arguing that the order violated laws on how executive orders are to be implemented, and soon after, a federal judge temporarily blocked the order from taking effect.
“Facing legal pressure from our clients and in the wake of a federal judge ruling in our case last evening, the Trump-Vance administration has abandoned OMB’s ordered federal funding freeze,” Democracy Forward President and CEO Skye Perryman said. “We are proud of our courageous clients – who represent communities across the nation – for going to court to stop the administration’s unlawful actions.”
The OMB later released a memo to clarify the original order, claiming it did not apply to all federal financial assistance and is “expressly limited to programs, projects, and activities implicated by the president’s executive orders, such as ending DEI, the green new deal, and funding nongovernmental organizations that undermine the national interest.”
However it did not clarify what it meant by “green new deal,” a set of proposals that, according to The New York Times, has never been implemented.
The OMB also said the freeze would not impact benefits like SNAP, which gives benefits to 41 million Americans and, in total, accounts for 24 percent of total consumer product spending in the U.S. In FY 2023, SNAP spending totaled USD 112.8 billion (EUR 108 billion). Typically, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture Data from 2011, SNAP households comprised nearly 20 percent of total spending on meat, poultry, and seafood.
Whether the freeze is in effect or not is also still unclear.
In a new memo issued on 29 January, the OMB issued a letter stating “OMB Memorandum M-25-13 is rescinded.”
However, White House Press Secretary said in a post on X the memo was “NOT a rescission of the federal funding freeze. It is simply a rescission of the OMB memo” that was performed “to end any confusion created by the court’s injuction.”
News organizations like the BBC asked for clarification on how rescinding the memo causing the funding freeze did not rescind the funding freeze but were apparently unanswered.
