US President Donald Trump.
The Trump administration has cut or frozen up to USD 177 billion in federal grants since President Donald Trump began his second term, with disruptions affecting all 50 states and the District of Columbia, according to a tracking tool released by the States United Democracy Center and Grant Witness. The groups said the USD 177 billion figure represents nearly 10 per cent of federal discretionary spending. The figure was released through a new tracking tool called Lost Funds, launched by the States United Democracy Center and Grant Witness, a group of researchers and scientists, according to the Associated Press. The Lost Funds tool relies on data from USASpending.gov, a public source of federal spending information, according to its methodology. The organisers said it would be updated as the administration takes further action and as lawsuits over the funding cuts move through the courts.
The groups said grants that were eliminated, frozen or delayed included funding for maternal health programmes in Michigan, education research in Mississippi and assistance for minority farmers in Iowa. California, Texas, New York, Illinois and North Carolina recorded the highest amounts of interrupted federal grant money, according to the tracker. They also said the scale of the disruptions went beyond the cuts that typically occur when administrations change. “By bringing thousands of funding disruptions from the Trump administration together in a publicly accessible, verified database, Lost Funds puts the magnitude of their impact on full display,” Scott Delaney, co-founder of Grant Witness, said.