Foreign Aid Frozen Until Trump Finds Out Exactly Where The Money Is GoingThe Trump administration’s Office of Management and Budget wrote a letter on Saturday, addressed to Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan. In it, they notified the State Department that they are freezing most of the foreign aid money congress already approved.
The government’s fiscal year ends on September 30. Various foreign aid accounts have “extra” money still sitting in them. OMB put a temporary hold on these “unobligated funds” until they can determine how much is on hand now, and what it was intended to be used for.
Depending on the information they get back, the OMB may suggest that Congress “cancel” the appropriated funds, called “rescission,” or “reprogramming” the funds to other uses.
An official for the U.S. Agency for International Development reports that between $2 billion and $4 billion is at stake. The unnamed official is convinced they’re not going to get the money back in the end. “It is pretty clear they will try to rescind the money.” Even if OMB decides to be nice after the probe, the flow won’t start again for a while. “It’ll be a long process,” the unnamed official protested.
The funds would be frozen, they wrote, until “three business days after” they get “an accounting of how much remains in specific accounts and how the funds are being spent.”
OMB made it clear in their letter that they won’t be handing out a single penny in new money until after the State Department and USAID show what happened to the money they already have, and explain why they didn’t spend that money. After all, they claimed to need it so desperately.
Liberals are screaming that the decision “undercuts” Congress. Liz Schrayer, with the US Global Leadership Council, is furious. “These are programs that are in our interest. If we take ourselves off the playing field, we do it at our own peril.” New York Democrat Rep. Eliot Engel backs her up. The chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee is convinced this is a “dangerous action,” and he vows to fight. “This Administration’s contempt for Congress is astounding. When Congress decides how much we spend on foreign assistance, it isn’t a suggestion. It’s the law, backed up by the constitution.”
OMB spokesperson Rachel Semmel told CNN that progressives can cry all they want. “It is incumbent on all Federal agencies to properly use funds provided by Congress.”
“In an effort to ensure accountability, OMB has requested the current status of several foreign assistance accounts to identify the amount of funding that is unobligated. On behalf of American taxpayers, OMB has an obligation to ensure their money is being used wisely.”
She went on to state, “if an agency can’t even tell us how much money is in the account, I have no confidence in their ability to tell me where the money is going to go to.”
“the accounts that are being looked at include programs that many over the years have considered wasteful, like ones that would pay for solar panels in the Caribbean, a space program in Pakistan, soccer camps in Guatemala, and foreign aid to countries that aren’t in the best interest of US foreign policy.”
Cuts in foreign aid:
https://youtu.be/sg7zEutNJH8
