A federal judge has temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’ freeze on federal grants and loans.
The White House had planned a freeze that could have amounted to trillions of dollars.
The judge blocked the action this afternoon, minutes before it was set to go into effect. The Trump administration wanted a pause so they could begin an across-the-board review of federal spending.
The plan set the stage for a constitutional clash over control of taxpayer money.
“We were incredibly stunned by this news. There are so many programs impacted by this federal freeze,” Elizabeth Keever, the chief resource officer for Harvesters, said.
After evaluating all of their programs, 13% of their total distribution from last year would be affected by this order if a judge had not stepped in.
“That’s 8 million pounds of food that are going directly into hands of neighbors, people right here in Kansas City. So, it is a substantial amount of impact that could be had if we see a stop to these programs, Keever said
The announcement itself was unclear to say the least, and it created mass confusion as no list of the entities that would or would not be affected was initially released.
No one knew if social security or Medicaid or SNAP benefits would be affected. Something the White House didn’t clarify until later in the day, even though the Medicaid portals all across the country were shutdown.
The White House press secretary said they were only targeting money spent on programs that do not align with this administration’s objectives.
Particularly around sending money to things that support undocumented immigrants or DEI programs and climate initiatives.
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