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\n

Senate Democrats vowed to fight a White House freeze on federal financial assistance, calling for a delay in the confirmation of President Donald Trump\u2019s nominee for White House budget chief, threatening potential court actions and warning Republicans about potential impacts on their own states.<\/p>\n

The Office of Management and Budget on Monday night issued a halt<\/a> on \u201call federal financial assistance,\u201d effective 5 p.m. Tuesday, that could be targeted under executive orders he\u2019s already signed pausing funding for foreign aid, diversity programs and energy projects.<\/p>\n

“It’s a dagger at the heart of the average American family in red states and blue states, in cities, in suburbs, in rural areas,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). \u201cIt is just outrageous.\u201d<\/p>\n

Democrats said the sweeping funding freeze is unlawful under the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, a law that Trump and his allies in turn call unconstitutional.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a constitutional crisis,\u201d said Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), the top Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee, which is scheduled to vote Thursday on Russ Vought, Trump\u2019s White House budget chief and an architect of the spending freeze.<\/p>\n

\u201cCongress holds the power of the purse,\u201d added Senate Appropriations Vice Chair Patty Murray (D-Wash.). \u201cThat is very clear in the Constitution.\u201d<\/p>\n

Republican leaders are so far defending the move.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that’s a normal practice at the beginning of administration, until they have an opportunity to review how the money is being spent,\u201d Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters Tuesday morning.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’ll see kind of what the extent of it is, and \u2026 what they intend to do in a more fulsome way. But for now, I think it’s just, it’s just kind of a preliminary step that I think most administrations take,\u201d Thune continued.<\/p>\n

But Democrats are preparing for action. Schumer said that he has already been in touch with New York Attorney General Letitia James. She plans to go to court, he said, \u201cright away on this horror.\u201d<\/p>\n

While states are expected to take the lead with lawsuits, organizations representing people impacted by the funding freezes could also have legal standing to sue.<\/p>\n

In addition to throwing U.S. agencies, states and localities into confusion over the fate of their federal funding, this move could jeopardize congressional efforts to keep the federal government funded past a March 14 shutdown deadline.<\/p>\n

Murray warned that the White House\u2019s move amounted to \u201cmassive, massive overreach\u201d that could imperil the traditional bipartisan negotiations over federal funding.<\/p>\n

\u201cCan you imagine what it’s going to be like \u2026 if those agreements mean nothing? That somebody can sit back and say, \u2018Sure, I’ll give you that,\u2019 knowing full well that their president’s in power and they will keep the funding out?\u201d Murray said Tuesday. \u201cWe cannot function as a democracy in this country if we cannot respect and abide by our ability to make agreements in Congress.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Senate Democrats vowed to fight a White House freeze on federal financial assistance, calling for a delay in the confirmation of President Donald Trump\u2019s nominee for White House budget chief, threatening potential court actions and warning Republicans about potential impacts on their own states. The Office of Management and Budget on Monday night issued a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5413\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}