Trump Takes Aid From Those Who Need It Most.
Trump Signs A Memo Halting Trillions Of Dollars In Federal Aid, Including To Crucial Programs Like Medicaid.
Donald Trump has done almost everything except lower prices in his first days. As we continue to cover one executive order each day, we’ve seen anti-LGBTQ action, anti-civil rights action, and now the freezing of federal aid and grants until further notice.
This memo, released early Tuesday and already being contested by federal courts, halts federal aid and grants to all agencies awaiting a review that their policies align with Trump’s agenda to end “wokeness.”
The problem with this? “Wokeness” is just a catch-all term for anything Republicans don’t like.
For example, Trump says discriminating against white people based on their race with “race-based quota’s” or other DEI practices is “woke.” Only to just use this as justification to overturn Equal Employment Opportunity, which specifically prevented race based discrimination.
So, because of this unconstitutional attempt to strong-arm the government into operating in his view, we see the effects already weighing in on the lowest-income individuals.
Including multiple states being unable to access the medicaid payment portal. Medicaid provides health care to the 72 million of the lowest-income individuals and currently funds 42% of births in America.
Party of the family, Am I right?
Also affected by this are school meal programs for low-income students, food-assistance programs, Head Start funding, WIC, and even a reintegration program for homeless veterans among many other. The total amount of programs halted is over 2,600 amounted to $3 trillion dollars.
In order to justify the funding, these programs were sent questionnaires with questions including:
Does this program provide funding that is implicated by the directive to end discriminatory programs, including illegal DEI and “diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility” (DEIA) mandates, policies, programs, preferences, and activities, under whatever name they appear, or other directives in the same EO, including those related to “environmental justice” programs or “equity-related” grants?
Does this program promote gender ideology?
Does this program promote or support in any way abortion or other related activities identified in the Hyde Amendment?
This freezing of funds has been matched with a purge of different agency employees and DOJ officials. From firing a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) official to terminating an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) member, it signals the message behind freezing these funds.
Comply with my agenda or I will use the full force of the government against you.
With said agenda being a very white-centric, 1940s-esque, patriarchal one that plans to minimize opportunity for the minority to maximize it for the majority in a strictly cultural application.
It also calls into question the power of the executive. With how he’s trying to consolidate power under his office in a way that relegates Congress to more of an advisory board at best.
It reads unconstitutional that the president could halt or otherwise reject congressionally-approved funds that were worked on in a bipartisan manner. This is essentially what Trump was impeached for his first time. It is also why a federal judge has already blocked it.
How could you expect the minority party to work with the majority on spending bills, where you need votes from both parties, if they know the parts they get the majority to compromise on can just be withdrawn by the president retroactively.
I don’t think the homeless veterans care if the people giving them assistance are woke. I don’t think the mothers who rely on Medicaid to fund their pregnancy care that the person who processes their payment is a “diversity hire.”
Something we should be able to agree on as Americans is the executive halting payments from programs that millions of vulnerable people rely on as a way to strong-arm his agenda into being put in place is a vile and despicable act of authoritarianism, and is wholly un-American.