{"id":543,"date":"2026-07-30T10:42:26","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T10:42:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/longdistancemoversusas.com\/?p=543"},"modified":"2026-07-30T10:42:26","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T10:42:26","slug":"trumps-grip-on-federal-spending-is-getting-dangerously-tight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/longdistancemoversusas.com\/?p=543","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s grip on federal spending is getting dangerously tight"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

When record snowstorms hit the northeast this year, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Rhode Island applied for help from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Despite such requests having been routinely approved in the past, the Trump administration denied the requests to those majority-Democratic states. The administration did so even though, Politico reported Wednesday, FEMA\u2019s regional offices agreed that, under federal guidelines, the requested assistance was warranted.<\/p>\n

Read more They immigrated legally. Under Trump, 1.8 million have been \u2018de-legalized.\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

The denials are part of a broader pattern that shows a major disparity in the Trump administration\u2019s approval rates for disaster aid with the determining factor appearing to be the political leanings of the state. As of March, according to Politico, Trump had \u201capproved just 23% of disaster funding requests from states with a Democratic governor and two Democratic senators,\u201d while \u201cstates with a Republican governor and two Republican senators, it\u2019s the opposite \u2014\u00a0Trump\u00a0has approved 89% of their requests.\u201d (White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told Politico about its earlier reporting, \u201cThere is no politicization to the President\u2019s decisions on disaster aid.\u201d)<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not believable. Trump has already used billions of dollars as a weapon against Democratic governors\u00a0and, if everything goes according to plan, by this fall, he will have given himself the ability to veto any federal aid that might benefit his political opponents with little regard for the Americans his decisions impact. A new rule under consideration would allow political appointees to reject applications for federal grant if the projects don\u2019t \u201cdemonstrably advance the president\u2019s policy priorities.\u201d The New York Times reported that the White House hopes to finalize and put the rule in place by October, just in time to hedge against the GOP potentially losing control of Congress in the midterm elections.<\/p>\n

Until recently, the administration had officially blamed various cuts to projects and delays in federal assistance on the need to prevent \u201cwaste, fraud and abuse.\u201d Of course, Trump himself has never been subtle about playing favorites. When faced with a federal shutdown last year, the president said on social media that he would prioritize slashing funds and staffers at supposed \u201cDemocrat Agencies.\u201d He likewise made clear to the press that states that voted against him in 2024 would hurt the most: \u201cWe can get rid of a lot of things that we didn\u2019t want, and they\u2019d be Democrat things.\u201d<\/p>\n

FEMA assistance isn\u2019t the only funding Trump has politicized. In response to a lawsuit filed by a group of California researchers who objected to the Trump administration canceling more than $7.5 billion in clean energy grants last year, that the grants were canceled \u201cbased solely\u201d on political considerations.<\/p>\n

In any previous administration, such an admission would have been an absolute bombshell of a scandal. After all, here\u2019s the government \u201cpicking winners and losers,\u201d as Republicans accused the Obama administration of doing, based on nothing but the party of the governor or senators. But such hostility is par for the course for a White House that has gleefully used any opportunity to withhold money from \u201cblue states,\u201d even when it hurts Republicans who live there.<\/p>\n

Read more U.S. launches retaliatory strikes on Iran after \u2018surprise attack\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

Just last week, the government extended holds on more than $1 billion in Medicaid funding to California and Minnesota, whose governors are two of Trump\u2019s most outspoken critics. In January, the Department of Health and Human Services suspended several programs for needy families over potential \u201cfraud\u201d in five Democratic-led states.<\/p>\n

Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought, who has been eager to slash federal spending that he deems \u201cwoke,\u201d has been spearheading that effort. \u00a0Vought took advantage of the federal shutdown last year to withhold transit funding to Chicago and infrastructure money for New York. While he\u2019s been better about sticking to the \u201cwaste and fraud\u201d language than Trump, there\u2019s no mistaking his criteria.<\/p>\n

Once the new rule he\u2019s crafted is fully put in place, Vought will no longer have to pretend that suspicions of \u201cwaste and fraud\u201d are driving his funding cuts.<\/p>\n

The one silver lining is that there\u2019s a way to stop these efforts to hurt Democratic-led states, albeit one that requires a more muscular and assertive Congress than we have seen in decades. The administration has so far taken advantage of areas where the law has left certain decisions in the hands of the executive branch. Approval of state disaster requests is entirely discretionary under federal law, for example, and the proposed new rule only applies to grants that don\u2019t have explicit spending instructions from lawmakers.<\/p>\n

It follows, then, that if lawmakers want to ensure the money they appropriate is spent, then their instructions need to be ironclad. Republican legislators may be OK with Trump\u2019s weaponization of federal funds now, but it behooves them to act now before a future Democratic president applies the same precedent. If Vought wants to continue to play games and look for loopholes to spite Democrats, then Congress must bind his hands on every piece of spending legislation that reaches Trump\u2019s desk.<\/p>\n

Read more FIFA faces global anger over plan to give Kushner brother a financial stake<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The White House has blatantly denied federal funds to Democratic-led states and wants even more power to deny billions of dollars in federal grants to political opponents.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":542,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-us"],"yoast_head":"\nTrump\u2019s grip on federal spending is getting dangerously tight - Long Distance Movers USA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/longdistancemoversusas.com\/?p=543\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Trump\u2019s grip on federal spending is getting dangerously tight - 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