President Donald Trump’s sweeping order freezing most federal grants, loans, and financial aid caused chaos and confusion around the country on Tuesday, as providers and recipients of government funding struggled to access critical programs that affect millions of Americans.
Nonprofit organizations said they were unable to get into a system used to access federal funds to pay for expenses, like salaries and rent. Numerouslawmakers reported problems in their states accessing the payment system for Medicaid, which covers 72 million people, and Head Start, a critical government program that provides preschool for nearly 800,000 low-income children.
“There are a lot of federal programs that appear to be swept up in this order and I think the administration needs to be more selective and look at a department at a time, for example, [and] make sure that important direct service programs are not affected,” Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, stressed to HuffPost.
“Our phones have been ringing off the hook all morning — wondering what it means, how long it’s gonna last,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) told reporters.
The directive, issued late Monday by the White House Office of Management and Budget, said that federal agencies should temporarily pause all grant and loan programs until Trump’s administration can ensure they are consistent with the president’s agenda, including bans on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and limits on clean energy spending. It excluded just two government programs: Social Security and Medicare.
But on Tuesday, as reports of disruptions within government agencies and state providers multiplied, the White House sought to clarify that the policy would not apply across the board and that funding would continue for federal food assistance and welfare programs, as well as student loans and Medicaid.
A federal judge temporarily blocked part of Trump’s order until Monday as litigation plays out.
“The White House is aware of the Medicaid website portal outage,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote in a post online. “We have confirmed no payments have been affected — they are still being processed and sent. We expect the portal will be back online shortly.”
Democrats, meanwhile, warned that Trump is attempting to wrest the power of the purse away from Congress illegally, calling the situation a “constitutional crisis.” Congress decides how federal funding is spent, and Trump, they said, is more specifically in violation of a 1974 law that set limits on how much a president can restrict money that’s been approved by Congress.
“Don’t believe these people. Preschools cannot pay staff and will need to start laying off staff very soon and sending little kids home,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) wrote in a post online on Tuesday.
Most Republicans defended Trump’s funding freeze, maintaining the president had the authority to review congressionally approved spending. A few GOP senators acknowledged, however, that a lengthy freeze could be problematic for constituents who rely on certain government programs.
“Depending on how long this goes, [and] people start hearing the real-life effects of it, we’ll hear about it,” Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) said when asked about the effect of Trump’s freeze on infrastructure grants and rural development grants.
“I can think of some things that shouldn’t be within the scope” of the order, added Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.).
On the other side of the Capitol, Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) expressed similar concerns about the funding freeze.
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“I hope it’s short-lived, because there’s real people that depend on these grants, and real people with real jobs, with missions, and I’ve heard from people in my district this morning asking me about it,” Bacon told NOTUS’ Reese Gorman.
But Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, defended the Trump funding freeze and called it a “legitimate exercise of executive oversight” in an interview with CNN.
“I’m not a lawyer, I can’t pontificate on what’s legal, but I suspect what’s happening is what most Republicans would be supportive of,” he told CNN’s Manu Raju.