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Trump halts funds to IRA and Infrastructure Law [1]

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Date: 2025-01-27

Once again, Trump is overstepping his authority by halting funds disbursements that were allocated by Congress to the Inflation Reduction Act and the massive Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (ICA), which was completely bipartisan. It was one of the executive orders that Trump signed on January 20th.

How can Trump be against infrastructure?

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act had a price tag of $1.2 trillion, with funds going to States for upgrading bridges and building new ones, roads, but of course there was the $15 billion allocated for helping companies build 500,000 electric vehicle chargers.

And then the Inflation Reduction Act included tax incentives for purchasing electrical vehicles. Trump has been calling that part of the Inflation Reduction Act, the electrical vehicle mandate. As though people were being required to buy electric cars instead of fossil fuel engine cars.

Trump has already canceled the reduction of prescription drugs. He's going after anything dealing with mitigating climate change. And he certainly didn't like taxing the rich and corporations more. They're his good buddies.

There's also the $50 billion in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that was for climate change protection. I'm sure that's part of the mix in Trump's mind.

These, of course, were two of the signature achievements of the Biden Administration. So of course, they are suspect. Trump has halted disbursement of funds from those two bills.

Democrats say Trump's order appears to violate the law call the Impoundment Control Act, which lays out limits on how much power of president has to restrict funding approved by Congress.

The Impoundment Control Act says clearly that funds cannot be rescinded unless there has been a 45-day session of Congress. That hasn't happened yet, Congress is only been in session since January 3rd. The president can request funds to be rescinded, but he can't do it himself. There is a good question here of if he can even pause it.

The Act was passed because of Nixon's abuse of power and impounding funds for programs he didn't like. We have the exact same situation here.

Trump has been called on the carpet before for doing the exact same thing. He withheld funds to Ukraine to ask Zelensky to get dirt on Joe Biden and the Biden family. That resulted in his first impeachment trial. We could have gotten rid of Trump then, but the Senate was already too cowardly and cowered of him to do the right thing, and didn't convict him. McConnell excuse at the second impeachment for Jan.6th was that it wasn't necessary to convict him because he was out of office and could be held both civilly and criminally liable. We know how that story went.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, bashed the measure as "illegally impounding" critical investments, while adding, "uncertainty to every company, non-profit organization, and state and local government that has a stake in either of those laws."

The Republicans, of course, say that everything is perfectly all right and Trump is doing the exact same thing that they would be doing in examining how to cut government spending. They'll say, well, we can't do anything about Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the military, so we've got to go after discretionary spending. The Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act fund programs that have waited decades to be done.

If this is the course Trump is going to take, then what about the CHIPS Act?

One section of Trump's executive order says specifically that he's eliminating the electrical vehicle mandate. Those exact words. And to ensure a level playing field for consumers to choose what type of vehicle they want.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse said, "They're poorly written, and Republican and Democrat states alike have been trying to sort through what the hell this executive order meant. There was an initial clarification that didn't provide much clarification."

The Democrats are also seizing on the situation to deal with Russell Voight, Trump's nominee for Director of The Office of Management and Budget who would have control over funds and their disbursement.

Democrats even said that his nomination was the most dangerous one put forth so far by Trump. Personally, I think Hegseth is worse.

Then I changed my mind when he said the Impoundment Control Act was unconstitutional. He's not the only one, Republicans have also said the same. They just want to give Trump all the power he wants even giving up their constitutional authority to control funds.

Holding funds from locked in contracts is a violation of the contract.

"In 2018, Trump tried the legal path. He tried to legally rescind some unobligated balances of budget authority during that time period. He is legally allowed to pause, not all disbursements, but legally pause new obligations from happening," said Bobby Kogan a former Senate budget aide.

That's not what he's doing this time. He's stopping funds to already obligated programs.

I can't see Trump being against improving roads and bridges and rail. I don't see him stopping funds for protecting and expanding the power grid, but I'm sure he's after those electrical vehicle charging stations and any clean energy projects. He has promised after all, drill, baby, drill.

Broadband expansion was another feature that everyone liked. But has Trump gotten so thick that he would say "let them use Starlink" and pay federal money to Elon Musk?

What about getting rid of lead pipes wherever they are found? Also trying to deal with PFAS pollution. Is Trump going to say, "Let then eat Teflon?"

Halting funds for projects that are already underway could lead to additional project costs and even possible cancellations of projects that require continuous flow of funds.

Contractors and subcontractors could sue for violating their contracts. Creating still another waste of money by Trump.

The one part of the Inflation Reduction Act funding that no one has talked about yet is the $60 billion dollars that was still allocated for the IRS to hire additional agents, and beef up tracking down the rich and the corporations that weren't paying their taxes. The Republicans and Trump came up with this weird idea that all the money was going to hire IRS agents that were going to go after the middle class, which was totally erroneous. They'll bring it up again in order to rescind that money, just when the IRS needs it during the tax season.

Just remember, Trump talked about infrastructure during his first term by saying he would have a bill for infrastructure in 2 weeks. 2 weeks later it was another 2 weeks. And on and on.

If Congress doesn't step up to the plate now to protect their constitutional authority of the purse, Trump will have gained his greatest power. Don't let him have it.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/1/27/2299534/-Trump-halts-funds-to-IRA-and-Infrastructure-Law?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web

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