WASHINGTON – The Trump administration has frozen, stalled or otherwise disrupted some $430 billion in federal funds — from disease research to Head Start for children to disaster aid — in what top Democrats say is an “unprecedented and dangerous" assault on programs used by countless Americans.
Sen. Patty Murray of Washington and Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut on Tuesday released an online tracker that is compiling all the ways President Donald Trump and his adviser Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency are interrupting the flow of federal funds, often going up against the law.
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“Instead of investing in the American people, President Trump is ignoring our laws and ripping resources away,” said Murray and DeLauro, who are the top Democrats on the Appropriations committees in Congress.
“No American president has ever so flagrantly ignored our nation’s spending laws or so brazenly denied the American people investments they are owed," they said.
The tally is far from complete or exhaustive, the lawmakers said, but a snapshot in time. It comes in a rapidly changing political and legal environment as the Trump administration faces dozens of lawsuits from state and local governments, advocacy organizations, employees and others fighting to keep programs intact.
At 100 days into Trump's return to the presidency, the project showcases the extent to which the White House is blocking money that Congress has already approved, touching off a constitutional battle between the executive and legislative branches that has real world ramifications for the communities the lawmakers serve.
The White House and its Republican allies in Congress have said they are working to root out waste, fraud and abuse in government. The Trump administration is in court fighting to keep many of the administration's cuts even as Musk, whose own popularity has dropped, says he will be cycling off DOGE’s day-to-day work.
And Trump's director of the Office of Management and Budget intends to soon send Congress a $9 billion rescissions package, to claw back funds through cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development and others.
Murray and DeLauro said they want to “shine a light on President Trump’s vast, illegal funding freeze and how it is hurting people in every zip code in America.” They said it's time for Trump and Musk “to end this unprecedented and dangerous campaign."
While Republicans have also stirred with concerns about Trump's spending cuts, many are reluctant to do so publicly as they try to avoid Trump’s reactions. Instead, they tend to work behind the scenes to restore federal dollars to their home states or other constituencies that have been put at risk by Trump’s actions.
The powerful Appropriations committees in the House and the Senate, where Republicans have majority control of both chambers, draft the annual funding bills that are ultimately approved by Congress and sent to the president’s desk for his signature to become law.