The White House on Wednesday backed off its efforts to freeze federal grant and loan funding. It was a wise decision.
President Donald Trump’s initial order, issued Tuesday, was part of his push to implement a comprehensive review of how Washington spends billions in such taxpayer funding each year. The freeze was intended to allow the administration “to quickly look at the scams, dishonesty, waste and abuse that’s taken place in our government for too long,” Mr. Trump said. “The American people strongly support these efforts. We are fighting to get the most out of every single tax dollar for our great citizens.”
This is an important and noble objective.
But the move ignores the vital separation of powers doctrine that undergirds the nation’s founding document. The Constitution grants Congress, not the executive branch, the power of the purse. In addition, Ilya Somin, a law professor at George Mason University, pointed out this week, “When it comes to conditions imposed on grants to state and local governments, the Supreme Court has long made clear that they too must be imposed by Congress.”
Just as Joe Biden had no authority to unilaterally forgive billions in student loan debt without an act of the legislative branch, Mr. Trump was on shaky constitutional ground in arbitrarily deciding not to hand out grant or loan money that Congress had already allocated.
The president’s order was met with immediate resistance. A number of state attorneys general — including Nevada’s Aaron Ford — filed suit, and a federal judge temporarily paused the move until she could hold arguments in the case. The administration’s decision to reopen the federal spigot should make that moot.
But Mr. Trump and the White House should move forward with their deep dive on grant spending. For decades, government watchdogs have tirelessly highlighted the folly of many federal handouts. Sen. Rand Paul’s 2024 Festivus report, for instance, noted that the National Endowment for the Arts spent $365,000 “to promote circuses in city parks” while the Department of Health and Human Services spent $419,470 to “determine if lonely rats seek cocaine more than happy rats.”
Our national leaders on both sides of the aisle didn’t amass $37 trillion in debt by exercising fiscal restraint, and the president’s desire to expose wasteful or unnecessary spending is a victory for taxpayers and a step toward reversing an unsustainable and dangerous trajectory. But if Mr. Trump seeks to reform grant spending or to cut loans and other expenditures, he’ll need to work the halls of Congress to take advantage of narrow Republican majorities.
