White House budget office rescinds federal funding freeze

The Trump’s administration’s Office of Management and Budget released a memo Wednesday rescinding a controversial order that froze a wide swath of federal financial assistance, which had paralyzed many federal programs and caused a huge uproar on Capitol Hill.

The decision came amid strong behind-the-scenes pushback from Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill, according to a GOP senator who was apprised of the decision to reverse the policy order.

The reversal was signed by Matthew Vaeth, the acting director of the White House budget office.

One GOP senator expressed relief over the decision.

“Chaos is never good,” the lawmaker said.

GOP senators had been flooded with calls from community leaders who expressed confusion and concern about losing federal grants.

Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) applauded the administration’s sudden change in course.

“I am pleased that OMB is rescinding the memo imposing sweeping pauses in federal programs. While it is not unusual for incoming administrations to review federal programs and policies, this memo was overreaching and created unnecessary confusion and consternation,” she said in a statement.

Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) indicated that White House officials reviewed the funding freeze after getting pressed by GOP lawmakers who had many questions about how it would affect their constituents.

“From our part, we were simply asking questions and a number of members did,” he said. “I think this is probably just a really good example of advise and consent.

“That means more than just nominees. Once in a while, it’s an advise and consent about a particular action,” he added.

The biggest snafu was the outage of Medicaid’s web portal, which affected many states and caused a loud public outcry.

The internet outage also affected Head Start early education programs and community health. Programs that lost access to the payment management portal run by the Department of Health and Human Services.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) told reporters that Republican senators should vote against Trump’s nominee to head the Office of Management and Budget, Russ Vought, to make sure the budget office doesn’t advance another funding moratorium.

“As you know Donald Trump just rescinded this horrible OMB freeze. He should now rescind Russell Vought’s nomination for OMB,” Schumer said.

“We don’t believe they’ll stop,” he said. “What they’re basically doing is being lawless to hurt families to help their billionaire friends. So they’re going to keep at it.”

This story was updated at 1:51 p.m.

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