Governor Hobbs Sends Error-Ridden Letter Over Federal Funding Freeze
By Staff Reporter |
After Tuesday’s blunder from Arizona’s chief executive, those across the state are again questioning the competency of Governor Katie Hobbs and her staffers.
Hobbs submitted an error-ridden letter to the Arizona Congressional Delegation on Tuesday afternoon requesting their assistance in resisting the Trump administration’s federal funding freeze.
Hobbs’ letter failed to include two of Arizona’s congress members: Congressmen Abraham Hamadeh and Paul Gosar. Her letter also incorrectly claimed Trump’s federal funding freeze extended to federal assistance programs providing individuals with healthcare, public safety, veterans’ services, and financial assistance.
“Without these programs, Arizonans will be denied healthcare, families will struggle to stay housed, and communities will become less safe. The effects of this funding freeze will have impacts across the state, and weaken Arizona’s ability to care for its residents,” said Hobbs. “Congress must act. These actions directly violate the Constitution’s delegation of power of the purse to Congress and the Impoundment Control Act of 1974. Courts, including the Supreme Court, have made it clear that presidents cannot unilaterally withhold the funding appropriated by Congress for these services.”
Hobbs also threatened to sue the Trump administration over its funding freeze.
As the White House and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) clarified in a memo and other public statements preceding Hobbs’ letter, the federal funding freeze doesn’t affect programs providing direct benefits to individuals. The OMB supplemented its memo with a Q&A on the guidance.
“This is not a blanket pause on federal assistance and grant programs from the Trump Administration. Individual assistance that includes […] Social Security benefits, Medicare benefits, food stamps, welfare benefits […] will not be impacted by this pause,” said Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt during Tuesday morning’s White House press briefing.
The following executive orders pertain to the federal funding freeze: “Protecting the American People Against Invasion,” “Reevaluating and Realigning United States Foreign Aid,” “Putting America First in International Environmental Agreements,” “Unleashing American Energy,” “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing,” “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” and “Enforcing the Hyde Amendment.”
An OMB memorandum meant to offer guidance on those executive orders, M-25-13, prompted an eleventh-hour federal court injunction on Tuesday. The federal funding freeze was scheduled to take place at 5 pm on Tuesday.
On Wednesday, Leavitt confirmed that the OMB rescinded its memo to “end any confusion” created by the injunction. In effect, this provided the administration with a workaround to the court order. A follow-up OMB memo advising of its rescission directed agencies to contact their general counsel for implementation of Trump’s executive orders.
“The President’s [Executive Orders] on federal funding remain in full force and effect, and will be rigorously implemented,” said Leavitt.
As first reported by the Arizona Daily Independent, other leaders took the effort to clarify the scope of the federal funding freeze — among them, Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin.
“I’ve spoken to senior officials at the White House and confirmed the temporary pause by OMB does not impact individual assistance and will not interrupt disaster recovery efforts, school and childcare funding, healthcare for seniors or low-income families, funding for our roads, meals and lunches, or any of the other misinformation that has spread,” said Youngkin. “The partisan stunt to disseminate knowingly misleading information is dangerous fearmongering and completely wrong.”
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