Late on Monday, the Trump administration issued an executive order halting payment of grants and loans to state and local governments, social service providers, and others. This action is illegal and unconstitutional. And it is likely to cause immediate and widespread harm to people and families across our state and the country. It must be rescinded by the President as soon as possible.
There are still many uncertainties about the impact of the order. The U.S. Office of Management and Budget has issued a number of clarifications of it—however, they have done little to clarify the scope and intention of the order.
It appears now that funding for state and local programs that provide veterans’ services, ensure public safety, and help seniors will be halted. So will some funding for our school districts and federal support for child care as will funding for programs that protect our air and water from pollution, support our farmers, and provide help for those who are food-insecure. Funding for rental assistance and housing rehabilitation will be blocked as well.
In addition, organizations that provide direct services will lose funding. This means that some programs may not be able to meet their payroll in a week or two and others will have to borrow money at high interest rates just to stay open.
And whether it’s a student with disabilities unable to get support from their school district, a veteran who loses their transitional housing, a senior who can’t get a ride to doctor’s appointments, a family that loses renter assistance, or a city that can’t afford to pay its police officers, millions of people’s lives will be made much harder and may even be put at risk completely by this action.
The Pennsylvania state budget receives a total of $46 billion from the federal government to support a wide range of programs. While we believe that some of the largest of those programs—including Medicaid / Medical Assistance, Title I funding for schools, and Pell Grants—are not included in the funding freeze, we estimate that at least $14 billion of federal grants to the state is at stake. At the moment, we cannot precisely estimate the amount of federal funding of social service agencies that is at risk. But it is a great deal of money.
In addition to the damage that will be done to individuals and families, state and local government employees, and social service agencies, the sudden and unclear order will create chaos throughout our state.
And on top of all that, the order is both illegal and unconstitutional. It is an example of what was called in the 1970s “impoundment,” the practice by which the president and his administration withholds funds that have been authorized and appropriated by the Congress. The Impoundment Act of 1974 makes it illegal for the president to take such action without seeking approval of Congress and providing a reasonable rationale for the action. And in 1975, the Supreme Court ruled that impoundment was unconstitutional in Train v. City of New York.
The Trump administration’s action is not just deeply damaging to the people of Pennsylvania and the entire country but is deeply damaging to our constitutional and legal order. President Trump must immediately reverse the order to ensure everyone can continue to access the essential public services they count on to meet their basic needs.
Update: February 13
Soon after we wrote this post, federal courts blocked the Tump-Musk freeze on spending. But they have followed the freeze with more unconstitutional and illegal shenanigans.
- They are now in the process of shutting down not one or two but three federal agencies, USAID, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the Department of Education. To be clear, those agencies were created by Congress. No president has the right to to shut them down without an act of Congress.
- It appears they have not fully complied with two court orders to lift the spending freeze. Just yesterday they demand New York City return funds that were appropriately and legally send to the city to reimburse for providing housing for immigrants (and pace Musk, not in luxury hotels).
- Attorney General Bondi is suing sanctuary cities to force them to use their police resources to round up undocumented immigrants. This is an unconstitutional request. States are semi-sovereign entities that are independent of the federal government. The federal government may not commandeer the police forces of our cities or states.
- Trump and Musk have fired the Inspector Generals of federal departments even though the law the created those position explicitly say the president may not fire them.
- Trump is corrupting the administration of justice by having his attorney general order that federal charges against Mayor Eric Adams be dropped. In return, Davis has ordered members of his administration to not criticize the president. Rules prohibiting the president from making decisions about who should be prosecuted and who not were instituted after the Nixon administration precisely to prevent a president from using this power to corrupt the administration of justice and to do so in a way that illegitimately expands his power.
All of these actions are the act of a dictator not a president. And they should make us worry about the fate of our representative democracy.
Perhaps the courts will block Trump from taking these illegal and unconstitutional actions. And perhaps he will obey the courts. But there are two other possibilities.
One is that the Supreme Court, composed of a majority of justices Trump has picked, will legitimate actions that to any unbiased legal mind are clearly illegal and unconstitutional.
The other is that the Supreme Court will rule against Trump and then Trump will ignore their ruling.
Frankly, at this point, we are not sure which would be a worse result. But either way, the president will be acting lawlessly. And that means our form of government as we have known it, has been overthrown. For we will have a president who will and, if not stopped in some other way, can do anything he wants. And that is not the president created by a constitution in place since 1789 and the laws that have been enacted under it.
We don’t know what happens then. We hope a massive outpouring of protest will encourage President Trump to think twice about destroying our form of government or embolden a majority of members of Congress to act.
But we would be dishonest if we did not say that we are deeply worried when we think about what a president untethered by any legal or constitutional constraints might do in response to massive protests.