Top Democratic appropriators say that President Trump and his administration have improperly frozen or cancelled more than $430 billion in funding that Congress has provided for a wide array of programs.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro and Sen. Patty Murray, the ranking Democrats on the House and Senate Appropriations Committees, launched a new database tracking the blocked funding. The 114 items listed, compiled by Democratic appropriations staffers, range from a cancelled $3 million contract for a hub coordinating long Covid research to more than $100 billion in frozen FEMA grants. And the Democrats say the list is not exhaustive.
“Just one hundred days into office, President Trump and Elon Musk are continuing their unprecedented assault on our nation’s spending laws, and it is families, small businesses, and communities in every part of the country who are paying the price,” Murray and DeLauro said in a joint statement. “Instead of tackling the cost-of-living crisis, President Trump is making it worse—blocking funding for Head Start centers, holding up funding to help families cool their homes this summer, cancelling programs to help feed kids in schools, ripping away funding for birth control and cancer screenings, and so much more.”
The Democrats said Trump is slashing research, transportation, public safety and disaster relief programs that help American families while seeking to provide billions in tax cuts for the wealthy. They also contend that the Trump administration has been guilty of an unprecedented lack of transparency on spending and cuts. “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.