Trump's Office of Management and Budget order pausing all Federal Grants and Awards

Week two of the Trump MAGA regime has started and, well, this escalated quickly and negatively.

As of January 27, 2025, Trump's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has put all Federal grants and awards on hold via M-25-13 Temporary Pause to Review Agency Financial Assistance Programs order. This is clearer than the headlines suggest. No money that has been awarded will be paid out until they "complete an administrative review", but they leave room to reallocate remaining funds to other Trump priorities or stop funding previously awarded programs going forward. This covers every Federal Agency, impacting programs like USDA grants, HHS grants, Department of Education funding, every damn thing. Additionally, they are going to require that every Federal program, contract, award, grant and funding vehicle, outside of direct individual assistance (Social Security, TANF, WIC, etc. - see definition below) is assigned to a "Senior Political Appointee" for oversight and management to ensure it conforms with Trump & MAGA priorities. Call this corruption 101, as Trump, his family and band of Bond Villain Rich Boys club will have oversight of Federal Awards, a return to the Patronage system of the late 1800’s to early 1900’s Federal corruption scandals.

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This is illegal, a violation of the Budget Impoundment Act of 1974, but there's no criminal penalties for violation of this law (Democratic, Independent and Pro-Democracy Non-MAGA Republicans must use this issue as a pledge to add criminal penalties for the violations of laws like the Budget Impoundment Act). This is something that Trump said he would do, Project 2025 and Agenda 47 made clear that they were going to do. This is not good, I repeat, this is not good. The Federal grants, loans and awards provide contracts to hundreds of thousands of small businesses (White, Minority, Women, Disabled and Veteran owned businesses), K-12 and Higher Education entities, Nonprofits, Community Development corporations, rural hospitals, domestic violence centers, municipalities, counties, tribal governments, State governments, Farmers Bureaus and the millions of Americans employed by these recipients. The Fiscal year 2024 Federal budget obligations for these frozen programs equaled $1,333,437,647,264 (Federal Spending Obligations FY 2024 - USA Spending).

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The predicate for this OMB order is the following series of MAGA Trump executive orders (my personal assessment of each is included after each title):

• Protecting the American People Against Invasion (Jan. 20, 2025): There is no invasion, it’s a lie & predicate for MAGA Militaristic Government overreach. (Ukraine was invaded, America hasn’t been invaded since the Confederate States invaded Pennsylvania in 1863).
• Reevaluating and Realigning United States Foreign Aid (Jan. 20, 2025): Hurts foreign allies and American businesses that are contracted to provide products and services for US foreign partners.
• Putting America First in International Environmental Agreements (Jan. 20, 2025): Negatively impacts spending in American energy and environmental projects while causing environmental harm.
• Unleashing American Energy (Jan. 20, 2025): Stops at least $10-$20 billion in spending on American Clean Energy and traditional infrastructure projects under the IIJA and IRA and raises energy costs for Americans.
• Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing (Jan. 20, 2025): Denies and redistributes billions in Federal and Corporate purchasing with qualified Minority and Women owned businesses and billions in wage income and upward employment mobility for millions of qualified Minority professionals to White male led companies and white male professionals.
• Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government (Jan. 20, 2025): Dehumanizes millions of Americans who only want to live as equal and free Americans.
• Enforcing the Hyde Amendment (Jan. 24, 2025): Negatively impacts Women’s Reproductive rights, economic security and doesn’t provide any economic legislative policies to directly invest in reducing a families cost of parenting.

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The four key highlights from this order includes:

1. In Fiscal Year 2024, of the nearly $10 trillion that the Federal Government spent, more than $3 trillion was Federal financial assistance, such as grants and loans (Fiscal year 2024 Spending equaled $6.752 trillion CBO Summary for Fiscal Year 2024 not $10 trillion, I don’t know if they know how to count).

1. This temporary pause will provide the Administration time to review agency programs and determine the best uses of the funding for those programs consistent with the law and the President’s priorities. The temporary pause will become effective on January 28, 2025, at 5:00 PM.

1. Each agency must pause: (i) issuance of new awards; (ii) disbursement of Federal funds under all open awards; and (iii) other relevant agency actions that may be implicated by the executive orders, to the extent permissible by law

1. Additionally, agencies must, for each Federal financial assistance program: (i) assign responsibility and oversight to a senior political appointee to ensure Federal financial assistance conforms to Administration priorities;

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This will hurt the economy and negatively impact functions and services within all corners of America. Long term, this will be used as a tool for Trump and the MAGA regime to punish and exact revenge against Democratic majority voting States, Cities, Counties and Non-MAGA American businesses, nonprofits and individual Americans. No matter what you think about President Biden’s administration, they never played politics with appropriations assigned from the Trump regime and never used Federal funding as a weaponized political tool, as will be the case under this order. This is bad policy all around and must be resisted at all levels of our society.

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Definition of Federal Financial Assistance pursuant to this order:

2 CFR 200.1 defines Federal financial assistance to mean “[a]ssistance that recipients or subrecipients receive or administer” in various forms, but this term does not include assistance provided directly to individuals. For the purposes of this memorandum, Federal financial assistance includes: (i) all forms of assistance listed in paragraphs (1) and (2) of the definition of this term at 2 CFR 200.1; and (ii) assistance received or administered by recipients or subrecipients of any type except for assistance received directly by individuals

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