I'm reading about this in a Washington Post piece, "White House pauses all federal grants, sparking confusion/Trillions of dollars could be on hold, according to an Office of Management and Budget memo" (free-access link). Excerpt:
Donald Kettl, professor emeritus and former dean of the University of Maryland School of Public Policy, said... [t]here will be widespread panic, Kettl said, as state and local governments as well as the people most reliant on federal-funded grants scramble to figure out if and when their cash flow will stop.
Re "people most reliant on federal-funded grants" — the memo is explicit that it does not apply to Medicare or Social Security and "does not include assistance provided directly to individuals." But clearly there are "people" who have reason to panic. These would be "people" overseeing matters entangled with left-wing ideology who must "complete a comprehensive analysis" of whether their activities align with Trump's "executive orders, including, but not limited to, financial assistance for foreign aid, nongovernmental organizations, DEI, woke gender ideology, and the green new deal."
Trump has gone big. It's the shock-and-awe approach. But do you remember "Obama's Big Bang" ("rapid, once-in-a-generation overhauls of energy, financial regulation and health care")?
I like getting a chance to use my "Trump is like Obama" tag. That's where the cruel neutrality really hurts.
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Not to miss the point but trillions of dollars in grants? I knew NGOs were out of control but holy carp! We know there’s mostly waste but when the perps won’t tell you where it’s all going…we’ll soon find out when we hear from those who have been cut off and the congressmen who love them…
It is like a moon shot, except it is not.
I’m reminded here of that weird Episcopal lady preacher here, and her insistence that gays and trans are fearful. There is no reason for them to be. Her sermon was drama queen nonsense, based on nothing. There is no campaign of violence and persecution aimed at gays or trans. Trump has never advocated or supported such a campaign.
What will "shock and awe" the public is just how many malignant programs and NGOs and other entities pursuing activities and promoting policies antithetitical to if not outright in conflict with the Constitution were 100% dependent on tax dollars to operate. This is the Federal behemoth that progressivism built and any true reform requires it all be exposed to garner public support for the changes necessary to preserve the Republic.
Ann said…
“…my ‘Trump is like Obama’ tag.”
William F. Buckley, Jr. noted…
“…the equivalent of saying that the man who pushes an old lady into the path of a hurtling bus is not to be distinguished from the man who pushes an old lady out of the path of a hurtling bus: on the grounds that, after all, in both cases someone is pushing old ladies around.”
Thousands of organizations fully depend on federal grants. This is how big government social engineering is implemented.
Grant recipient organizations are often created to meet special targeted requirements, such as being a "disabled veteran owned, female owned, black owned small business" --- these can get bonus points for grants and contracts with les consideration of quality. However, ownership may be in name only, with the business funded by a general investor as a silent partner with 49% ownership but functional control. Some have been doing this for 50+ years (i.e., following LBJ's "Great Society").
Also see how PBS and NPR pretend to NOT be government-funded sources. The government delivers grants to local stations to spend "as they wish," which in turn is used to "buy" grant-created content from other organizations in the public media grant ecosystem. See the career of Ken Burns.
Obama and the progressive agenda vs Trump and his freedom agenda. We have experienced the results of the leftist policies-totalitarian rule. The State was supreme, the individual, was nothing.
We now get to see how American style freedom works.
Obama, Marxism, Gramsci was a progressives dream team.
Right now Trump is pissing on the results of that 'transformative' nonsense.
The left is in shock. "Freedom is just chaos, with better lighting"
"fundamental transformation"
That which has been transformed can be transformed again.
To everything turn, turn, turn
There is a season turn, turn, turn
And a time to every purpose under Heaven...
Trump 2.0 is to Obama as the first atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima is to a bunker-buster bomb.
AA said, "I like getting a chance to use my "Trump is like Obama" tag. That's where the cruel neutrality really hurts.
If Althouse is happy, I'm fine with it too.
This is so brilliant. Trump went right for the jugular: The money.
The entire Non-Profit ("We funnel our money to management rather than shareholders") sector needs to be massively reformed. Much of it is a gigantic shell-game in which taxpayer dollars are shuffled from organization to organization to fund political activity and enrich management.
Nuke 501(c)(3)'s that do ANYTHING except deliver services directly to people. No lobbying, no "advocacy", no re-granting grants (which is really just a form of money laundering). Ad buys and the production of "educational" materials should be under the strictest scrutiny. At least 90% of funds received by 501(c)(3)'s should be required to be spent on front-line worker salaries. Administrative and management salaries and headcounts should be capped. If you want to make lots of money, go work in the for-profit sector: non-profit is supposed to be serving the public.
Trump is a much better golfer. There's really no comparison.
This is all public information. Some people absolutely love and believe in these grants. Many organizations aggressively compete for grants:
https://www.grants.gov/
Trump is a golfer, Obama is a vanity handicap. Play Obama for money not Trump…
If there are Literally, "trillions" of dollars of US grants.. THAT is The Problem, Right There
Serious Question:
If you are an "NGO", that is WHOLLY dependent on government funding..
HOW are you a Non Government Organization ?
It is a big shell game with huge management costs and a lot of political content, yes. However, I'd not characterize pass-through spending as money laundering. Instead, grants are a way to increase the size and reach of federal agencies without hiring more employees or locking in agency budgets for the long term future. Typically, those in Congress who approve grant spending lay out long and detailed requirements for each grant and how it can be spent. They have specific administrative cost caps and monitor pass-through spending too.
Some heads sure are spinning. They can't get a protest organized about one of Trump's new policies before he drops 8 new ones that they need to protest! Pretty soon they'll have to revert to generic "ORANGE MAN BAD" signs. Only problem is that he doesn't look all that orange any more. Apparently being President has given Trump access to a much higher grade of spray tan.
While I'm all in favor of Trump's actions so far, these are all executive orders. Presidential memos, etc. that can be reversed by the next democrat President as easily as Trump reversed Biden's. He will need to get Congress to pass these into law to make them much harder to rescind. This brings up my biggest disappoint in Trump's victory - he didn't have any coattails. A one vote majority in the House, a three seat majority in the Senate is all he has to work with. I was expecting a really wide margin in both Houses, enough so that any infighting wouldn't make any difference. Now it looks much more difficult to get Trump's agenda passed into law.
1. Propagandists lie and use terms to hide what they are doing, such as Biden's consciously misnamed "Inflation Reduction Act."
2. NGO = "Hire people to do stuff that we want to do but can't legally do as a government agency." This applies to fairly mundane stuff like public opinion surveys -- if the government wants to collect data from 10+ private citizens the rules become so thorny that it's not worth the effort --> outsourced as a contract.
"Trump is like Obama"
This is because there are a lot of younger conservatives who observed what the Obama administration did and learned from it. They're the ones in charge, now. The first Trump admin was hamstringed by the establishment GOP, who still believed that it was 2004.
NGOs are a money laundering operation for politicians. Friend, family and partners form an NGO so that the politician has an entity to hide his/her graft.
You didn't honestly think all that money was going direct to Ukraine did you?
Is this a DOGE first strike?
Very interesting. So has doge delivered its first trillion in cuts. This is a very muskian move. But it also resembles Javier milieu. You cut until something breaks and add back what is needed. We hopefully will find that little of this is needed in a color blind society.
If even 5% of the money sprayed out in government grants accomplishes anything useful, I would be surprised.
not necessarily 100% US funding e.g. Clinton Foundation
This will be the approach: When changes are proposed, the negative impacts associated with the change will be the subject to be amplified and made to appear as dramatic and catastrophic as possible, on the weakest class possible. The Democratic Party communications organ, the Progressive Legacy Mainstream Media, will happily oblige.
But: Do you notice, a lot of journalistas are coming out of the closet now, admitting they were aware of lies and malfeasance all along, it was just their editors, and the War, and that bast*rd Johnson that kept them from speaking up. Now it's not only safe to, it's becoming the fashion. All of a sudden, the public mood of the consumer base has started shifting and the advertising revenue is following. There are some hard choices coming, for all the right people.
I've have always been inclined to think that Trump has a more nuanced and longer-range view of the issues than he lets on. I think he fully expected to serve for 2 terms, but did not expect to be interrupted, as it turned out. Plus, I think he expected his first term to be, in equal parts, a learning experience, getting his mind around how the system functions. His second term is going to be the application of that learning - his policy term, his legacy. I keep reading that Trump is predicted to be a consequential President, and I agree with this conclusion.
The lawfare, the unceasing use of the social and media machinery in attack mode, going all the way back to Obama's derisive mockery at the Press Club dinner that first brought these sentiments into the open - I'm thinking that these are all indications that the threat was recognized early on.
Turn off the spigots to assclowns like. Michael Mann and much of the human-caused global warming hoax will whither in the heat.
- Krumhorn
Trump is nothing like unctuous, anti-American phony Obama. Trump is like Jesus.
Excellent reply, Rocco, to an absurd suggestion.
Drout,
Distinctions are already written into law. 501(c)(3)s are charitable organizations that cannot engage in lobbying or educational activities. Contributions to them are tax-deductible.
Then there are 501(c)(4) organizations, which do engage in education and/or lobbying. Donations to these are not tax-deductible.
In addition to the fact there is no such thing as a "trans kid" without an insane and abusive adult coaching them. Let kids be kids.
Trump is more like Moses. He has parted the Blue Sea and is letting the people return home to the Promised Land (Normal America) after wandering in the Desert of Crazies for 4 years.
It needs sunshine to disinfect it. Yes people could hunt down the data. It needs to be brough out into the open and debated like government spending is supposed to be.
It's as if by flooding the zone causing libtards to go into widespread panic over every little move you make as part of a grand strategy. Once again the elites in the media government industrial complex demonstrate the practical uselessness of a liberal arts degree.
The Democrat motto (should be) is, more money, no results. Take one, just one, example to present to the public. Take high speed internet as an example We've all been told billions upon billions have been spent without a single home connected. Dig in and tell us: How many have been put on the payroll, Federal, state, local and NGOs. How many studies have been started, by whom and their progress. How many plans and studies are left to come. Who - specifically - is in charge? Ask them how happy hey are with the non-results and what they intend to do about it. How much has been spent to date? Who are the recipients? Who are the second tier recipients.
i think we'd all be shocked and disgusted.
The difference between the Trumpapalooza and “Obama’s big bang” as I understood the old Politico article is that Obama’s policies were unpopular. Trump’s are not. Obama started right in doing a lot of stuff he wasn’t elected to do, whereas Trump is fulfilling his voters’ wishes.
There is an interesting poster on X whose stated purpose is "mucking through .gov so you don't have to."
Check out "RandoLand.us" (@RandoLand_us)
It is surprising (but not surprising) who & what he finds sucking $$$ from the USG's teat.
You can also explore USG spending at https://www.usaspending.gov/
...which is the gold mine where RandoLand finds his nuggets.
Oh - so you object to Loyalty Oaths, now, like, say for example, Diversity Statements? Tell us how you feel about Purity Testing, then.
But they are also nested: We give $10m to NGO#1 who then gives $5m to NGO#2 that we are not funding "directly." Like Catholic Charities who acts as a clearinghouse for several "immigrant" NGOs.
And I'm not sure if Enigma's link shows the additive totals: New Green Deal gives NGO#666 $70m + Commission on Green Energy within Commerce Dept. gives NGO#666 another $70m + EPA gives a block grant to NGO#666 for $50m and on and on it goes.
Biden's moon shot was his promise that "If elected we will cure cancer," which he repeated about 100 times in the 2020 election.
the memo is explicit
Sure, if "explicit" is understood as a passing ambiguous reference buried in the text.
When my daughter was four, if I told her "No" about anything her response was, "STOP YELLING AT ME!" The current Dems are doing the same thing.
When, for example, the EPA solicits Sierra Club lawsuits, then doesn't defend against the suits, EPA "loses" and gets hit with $$$ penalties paid to the Sierra Club and judicial creation of environmental rules & regs. Neat trick, also used by other agencies to advance leftie goals. Something needs to be done about that, too.
@Mike: Grants.gov is a clearning house but there may be legacy sites too. Congress creates a total for spending (debt) every year and every penny of a grant must be accounted for if the agency is audited. The pass-through recipients must comply with the terms and conditions of the primary grant. This is very similar to how contracting works in private industry and government. But, grants are 'free money' for an ideological/government function in industries that can't pay for themselves.
Vote for the type of grants you wish to see, but the accounting is rather pedestrian and very thoroughly documented. These are some of the federal jobs Ramaswamy would like to cut -- those who review grants for 'correct' spending and cheating.
so much of the left is funded by taxpayer dollars. it's long overdue that the spigot our money be shut off to these pinkos.
Another great aggregator/publisher of this sort of thing is @datarepublican.
I think AOC referred to green new deal as a moon shot as well.
I should point out that NASA’s current moon shot isn’t.
Cruel neutrality? Seems more like ra ra MAGA. The link is to an article about Obama legislative efforts. The Trump EO purports to ignore legislation in the service of bumper stickers.
I hope someone keeps track of who screams.
I wonder what the mix of conservative/progressive grants is; I am sure there are some on the right, but my guess is many more on the left will be wailing.
Nice Dem talking point there, Mattie ol' boy. It's also demonstrably false. Thanks for playing.
Look up the The Impoundment Control Act of 1974. Thanks
Wow, lots of commenters here saying "NGO spending is OUT OF CONTROL"!!!!!
Take a look at the top recipients of federal spending:
https://www.usaspending.gov/recipient
Lockheed Martin, Collins Aerospace, and Boeing spending is OUT OF CONTROL!!!!
A federal judge in DC has issued a TRO against implementation of the OMB EO. As I said in a comment yesterday in response to the shock and awe post, there is no shortage of lawyers to deal with Trump's EOs.
I almost deleted my own comment upon reflection that maybe it was unnecessarily sharp. I hope it wasn't what caused you to delete your own - sorry, if so. I probably misunderstood your point.
“But clearly there are ‘people’ who have reason to panic.”
Only people sucking the government teat.
Very strike.
Much cut.
Wow.
Mary H -- you are right. My apologies. I should have said that 501(c)(4)s should be eliminated and 501(c)(3) be under much stricter scrutiny with very big penalties for political activity. And I'd like to see very tight limits on how much the officers of nonprofits can pay themselves.
(I do know of 501(c)(3)'s, though, that are simply self-enrichment tools for their officers. Reporting them to watchdogs has done no good: somebody involved seems to have protection in their corrupt home state).
Bravo!
It is a brilliant move. One of two that I think will have the most impact. The other is to undo Kennedy's EO on public sector unions. If he cuts off the NGO leftist-subsidy scam and at the same time cuts off the public sector union funding for the Democratic Party, he may actually accomplish something.
I made this argument to my wife this evening. Her reply was that we have to hope for a preference cascade. That is, when you ask people questions like "are you for chemically or surgically altering minors with gender dysphoria when the result is that they will never be able to have children or even have a normal sex life?" everyone says, "of course not!" But they didn't realize that most others feel the same way. Hopefully, she is correct. At least on some topics, it may be that enough Democrats realize that the public has gone against them and that political survival means going along with some legislative changes. We'll see.
I like getting a chance to use my "Trump is like Obama" tag. That's where the cruel neutrality really hurts.
Not really. Saying "Trump is using what Obama did as a justification for doing it to the Left" is a great thing, something to celebrate, at least if your'e on the Right
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