By Daniel Rose
President Donald Trump’s chaotic and impulsive 2025 freeze of federally financed grants has been cancelled for the moment. Although his ardent MAGA supporters hope to pursue it, the general public’s shocked reaction has been a) clear, b) negative, and c) effective.
The Federal Government’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which had issued on Monday a memo precipitously freezing payment of all federal grants, rescinded on Wednesday the order after federal Judge Loren AliKhan of the District of Columbia temporarily blocked it with an “administrative stay”; further, on Thursday, another federal official in Seattle, Washington, Judge John C. Coughenour, issued another temporary restraining order, responding to a request by Democratic attorneys general in 22 states and the District of Columbia to block the funding freeze.
Experts in constitutional law unanimously agree that the President cannot assume the “power of the purse” that the U.S. Constitution specifically confers on Congress. Two long-standing federal laws – the Impoundment Control Act and the Antideficiency Act – state unequivocally that the Executive branch must spend money as specifically appropriated by the legislative branch. And so, in due course, it will.
International reactions to Trump’s “first week” proclamations, particularly to his threats of the imposition of severe tariffs and possibly devastating trade restrictions, raise the specter of disruptive trade wars. Widespread feelings of perplexity, fear and — almost universally — of determination not to be bulldozed by his dogmatic, improper and counterproductive demands prevail.
America’s much regretted withdrawal from the World Health Organization and from the Paris Climate Agreement were widely lamented, as are Trump’s hardline declarations on global taxation and his deplored indifference to the importance of successful Ukrainian independence.
The year ahead is shaping up as a frightening one. Liberal efforts in 2025 to recapture a majority in the House of Representatives, and hopefully successful efforts to re-attract Latino, Asian and Black male voters to support the Democratic presidential candidate in 2028 are crucial.
The challenges we face today are fierce; and we can only hope that prudent, thoughtful and responsible individuals of both political parties and of all political persuasions can work successfully together to meet them.