By Senior Editor Paul Rosenberg
Convicted felon Donald Trump plunged the government into the deep end of chaos on Monday, after a week of testing the waters in the shallow end. His administration illegally ordered a cut-off of funding for thousands of programs in a memo from the White House Office of Budget and Management, first reported on Bluesky by independent journalist Maria Kabas.
“OMB temporarily pauses all agency grants and loans programs,” Kabas wrote, going on to quote a revealingly deranged explanation of the rationale: “The use of Federal resources to advance Marxist equity, transgenderism, and green new deal social engineering policies is a waste of taxpayer dollars that does not improve the day-to-day lives of those we serve.”
The action is clearly unconstitutional, as Congress has the power of the purse, directing where money is to be spent, and the president takes an oath to make sure the laws are faithfully executed—which would include spending money as Congress directs. But it’s not just an abstract theoretical constitutional problem. It’s a problem of complete and utter chaos, threatening to take food from hungry children.
“Democrats warned that Trump’s latest directive could significantly harm programs used by millions of Americans, including food and rent assistance, early childhood programs, nonprofit organizations and children’s health insurance, among many others,” Huffington Post accurately reported.
The next day, Politico published a 52-page document which detailed funding stoppages for SNAP (aka food stamps) and WIC (for low-income pregnant mothers and babies), along with school breakfast, lunch, and milk programs, as well as the home energy program that keeps poor Americans from freezing in winter. However, some of those stoppages were apparently rolled back, further adding to the chaos.
While the Trump administration tried to argue that the pause wasn’t an illegal impoundment, a former chief counsel for the OMB, Sam Bagenstos, quickly went onto Bluesky to refute this lie. “The delay OMB has ordered specifically contradicts the Impoundment Control Act,” he wrote, introducing a thread with a full explanation.
Crucially, he wrote:
“The ICA does not just cover a total refusal to spend. It covers “withholding or delaying the obligation or expenditure of budget authority (whether by establishing reserves or otherwise) provided for projects or activities” and “any other type of Executive action or inaction which effectively precludes the obligation or expenditure of budget authority, including authority to obligate by contract in advance of appropriations as specifically authorized by law.” 2 U.S.C. 682(1).
The National Council of Nonprofits quickly filed suit on Tuesday and a federal judge set an immediate hearing for 4 PM Eastern. At the hearing, he stayed the funding freeze until next Monday.
While some people feared that Trump would try to take the case to the Supreme Court, which would simply rubber stamp it, as they had with his sweeping immunity claim, constitutional law professor Steven Vladeck, a sharp critic of the court, explained that this was highly unlikely in a special edition of his newsletter.
“If presidents can impound appropriated funds at any time and for any reason, then there’s not much point to having a legislature,” he wrote, getting right to the heart of the matter. But that’s why he doubted the Court would go along. “For as much as this Court has embraced the ‘unitary executive’ theory of executive power, impoundment has never been a central feature of that school of thought,” he wrote. “It’s one thing to believe that the President must have unitary control of the executive branch; it’s quite another to believe that such control extends to the right to refuse to spend any and all money Congress appropriates.”
It’s an important distinction, and a comforting thought. But SCOTUS gave Trump even more presidential immunity than he originally asked for. So it’s really anyone’s guess if SCOTUS decides Congress can simply be written out of the Constitution.
Meanwhile, the least among us are just out of luck.
Jesus wept.