特朗普下令暂停联邦资金，使该国陷入混乱

【中美创新时报2025 年 1 月 28 日编译讯】（记者温友平编译）周一晚些时候，特朗普总统的管理和预算办公室发布了一项名为“暂停机构拨款、贷款和其他财政援助计划”的命令，这让全国各地的计划陷入了疑虑，大大小小的计划实际上被关闭了一段时间。《波士顿环球报》记者Tal Kopan 和 Jim Puzzanghera 对此作了下述报道。

周二早上破晓时分，马萨诸塞州国会办公室被大量问题淹没：幼儿园管理员无法登录他们的联邦 Head Start 门户网站。社区卫生中心同样被锁定。当地医院不确定联邦资金是否仍可使用。

每个人都想知道同一件事——特朗普政府是否真的冻结了联邦资金，它们是否能够继续运作？周二早上，华盛顿的答案是，我们正在试图弄清楚。

周一晚些时候，特朗普总统的管理和预算办公室发布了一项名为“暂停机构拨款、贷款和其他财政援助计划”的命令，这让全国各地的计划陷入了疑虑，大大小小的计划实际上被关闭了一段时间。根据《华盛顿邮报》发布的一份备忘录，该备忘录要求各机构评估所有联邦“财政援助计划”是否符合特朗普的行政命令，并且“各机构必须暂停所有与所有联邦财政援助的义务或支付有关的活动，以及其他可能受行政命令影响的相关机构活动，包括但不限于对外援助、非政府组织、DEI、觉醒性别意识形态和绿色新政的财政援助。”

备忘录明确指出，医疗保险和社会保障不受影响，也没有直接提供给个人的东西，但目前尚不清楚这是否包括作为这些资金转帐的计划。暂停原定于周二下午 5 点生效。各机构必须在 2 月 10 日之前报告。与此同时，各机构应暂停发放资金和“在法律允许的范围内，暂停可能受行政命令影响的其他相关机构行动”，直到管理和预算办公室能够审查并提供指导。

简而言之，结果就是一片混乱，因为备忘录的范围不明确，使数百个依赖联邦资金的项目陷入了疑问。国会办公室因此立即开始接到电话。

“市长们打电话说，‘我正在开展的工作部分由联邦拨款资助，我必须在今天 5 点停止吗？’”马萨诸塞州参议员伊丽莎白·沃伦告诉《波士顿环球报》。“启蒙计划由联邦资金运营。所以他们今天 5 点就关闭，并告诉所有家长，‘在唐纳德·特朗普决定重新开放之前，不要带孩子回来’？这不仅是错误的，而且违反了法律。”

特朗普的新闻秘书卡罗琳·莱维特利用她的第一次每日新闻发布会淡化了这些担忧。

“这并不是特朗普政府全面暂停联邦援助和补助计划，”莱维特说。“如果你正在接受联邦政府的个人援助，你仍将继续获得这些援助。然而，总统和政府有责任妥善管理纳税人的钱。”

周二下午，管理和预算办公室向国会办公室分发了一份备忘录，但这份备忘录并没有澄清这一情况。备忘录指出，医疗补助和启蒙计划等计划不会受到影响，尽管管理人员表示，他们在尝试完成登记上学等基本任务时无法访问这些计划的联邦门户网站。莱维特在简报会上无法具体回答有关医疗补助状况的问题。

莱维特说，如果联邦机构认为他们应该继续获得资金，他们可以直接向管理和预算办公室说明他们的计划的合理性。

马萨诸塞州一家社区卫生中心将他们从联邦支付处理系统收到的消息分享给了国会办公室，国会办公室又将消息分享给了《波士顿环球报》。消息写道：“由于有关可能不允许的补助金支付的行政命令，[支付管理服务] 正在采取额外措施处理付款。对适用计划和付款的审查将导致付款延迟和/或拒绝。”

沃伦在 X 平台上写道，马萨诸塞州一家帮助 100 多名退伍军人获得过渡住房和食物的退伍军人非营利组织担心，由于五天后租金到期，退伍军人可能会被驱逐。

其他担忧也很多，包括冻结将如何影响低收入家庭能源援助计划或饮用水州循环基金等计划，这些计划有助于从当地供水中清除铅管和永久性化学品。

与此同时，马萨诸塞州代表团的地区主管开会交换意见，就哪些计划已经受到影响进行了交流。民主党通讯主管和参谋长的群聊同样热闹非凡。据代表团一名工作人员称，工作人员联系了管理和预算办公室的联系人，他们唯一可以确定的是这份备忘录可能会产生“重大影响”。

伍斯特众议员吉姆·麦戈文的发言人表示，麦戈文上午与众议院拨款委员会的民主党高层进行了交谈，各委员会和机构的工作人员也进行了联系，但很难得到答案。

“国会议员已经与选民通了电话，他们对正在发生的事情感到恐慌，”马修·博纳科西通过电子邮件转达道。“市长、镇行政人员、当地反贫困机构、老年人服务机构、送餐上门、商会和商界领袖以及执法部门。人们确实感到困惑、混乱和恐惧——他们担心这对他们的使命和我们的地区意味着什么。”

他补充说：“当特朗普刚刚从国会手中接管了对所有联邦支出的独裁控制权时，很难让人们放心。”

暂停拨款的合法权力尚不明确。国会拥有宪法赋予的联邦支出权力，民主党声称特朗普破坏他们法律授权的行为是非法的。特朗普政府将暂停支出定性为评估项目合规性的临时措施。

非营利组织迅速在华盛顿特区提起诉讼，敦促法院紧急干预。

共和党人对冻结支出更为乐观，认为这是政府为了解情况而采取的常规举措，尽管他们没有想到新政府会采取类似的先例。

路易斯安那州共和党参议员约翰·肯尼迪表示，支出冻结是控制联邦政府赤字的重要第一步，同时承认 OMB 备忘录似乎并非“精心起草”。肯尼迪称之为评估资金的“临时冻结”。

“我认为没有人处于恐慌状态……参议院或共和党中的任何人都没有，但我们会看看结果如何，”北达科他州参议员凯文·克莱默说。 “人们期待新总统做出这样的事情，尤其是这位总统，他正在迅速兑现他的所有承诺。如果这种情况继续下去，一个月后，我预计我会听到人们的声音，这取决于谁的牛被刺伤了。”

但克莱默承认，如果医疗补助门户网站确实瘫痪了，“那将是一个问题。”

这是一条突发新闻，将会更新。

题图：2025 年 1 月 20 日星期一，特朗普总统在华盛顿 Capital One Arena 参加室内总统就职游行活动时签署了一项冻结招聘的行政命令。Evan Vucci/美联社

附原英文报道：

Trump order to pause federal funding throws the country into a chaotic scramble

By Tal Kopan and Jim Puzzanghera Globe Staff,Updated January 28, 2025 

President Trump signs an executive order on a hiring freeze as he attends an indoor Presidential Inauguration parade event at Capital One Arena, Monday, Jan. 20, 2025, in Washington.Evan Vucci/Associated Press

WASHINGTON — As dawn broke Tuesday morning, Massachusetts congressional offices were flooded with questions: Preschool administrators couldn’t log into their federal Head Start portals. Community health centers were similarly locked out. Local hospitals were unsure if federal funds were still accessible.

Everyone wanted to know the same thing — had the Trump administration actually frozen federal funds and would they be able to keep functioning? On Tuesday morning, the answer from Washington was, we’re trying to figure that out.

A late-Monday order from President Trump’s Office of Management and Budget titled “Temporary Pause of Agency Grant, Loan, and Other Financial Assistance Programs” plunged programs across the country into doubt, effectively shutting down programs large and small for an unknown amount of time. The memo, according to a copy posted by The Washington Post, ordered that agencies needed to evaluate all federal “financial assistance programs” for compliance with Trump’s executive orders, and “agencies must temporarily pause all activities related to obligation or disbursement of all Federal financial assistance, and other relevant agency activities that may be implicated by the executive orders, including, but not limited to, financial assistance for foreign aid, nongovernmental organizations, DEI, woke gender ideology, and the green new deal.”

The memo specified that Medicare and Social Security were not affected, nor was anything directly provided to individuals, but it was unclear if that included programs that served as a pass-through for those funds. The pause was scheduled to take effect Tuesday at 5 p.m. and agencies are to report back by February 10. In the meantime, agencies were to pause disbursing funds and “other relevant agency actions that may be implicated by the executive orders, to the extent permissible by law,” until the Office of Management and Budget could review and provide guidance.

In plain terms, the result was the eruption of chaos, as the memo’s unclear scope threw hundreds of programs that rely on federal funds into doubt. And congressional offices immediately started getting the calls as a result.

“The mayors [are] calling to say, ‘I have work underway that is partly funded through a federal grant, do I have to stop today at 5 o’clock?’ ” Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren told the Globe. “Head Start is run through federal funds. so do they close down today at 5 o’clock and tell all those parents, ‘Don’t bring your children back until Donald Trump decides to reopen’? It’s not only wrong, it’s a violation of the law.”

Trump’s press secretary Karoline Leavitt used her first daily press briefing to downplay the concerns.

“This is not a blanket pause on federal assistance and grant programs from the Trump administration,” Leavitt said. “If you are receiving individual assistance from the federal government, you will still continue to receive that. However, it is the responsibility of this President and this administration to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars.”

A memo distributed by the Office of Management and Budget to congressional offices Tuesday afternoon did little to clarify the situation. The memo specified programs like Medicaid and Head Start would be unaffected, even as administrators said their federal portals for those programs were inaccessible as they tried to complete basic tasks like register school attendance. Leavitt couldn’t answer questions about Medicaid’s status specifically during the briefing.

Leavitt said federal agencies could justify their programs directly to the Office of Management and Budget if they thought they should continue receiving funds.

One Massachusetts community health center shared a message they received from the federal payment processing system with their congressional office, which shared it with The Globe. “Due to Executive Orders regarding potentially unallowable grant payments, [Payment Management Services] is taking additional measures to process payments. Reviews of applicable programs and payments will result in delays and/or rejections of payments,” the message read.

Warren wrote on the platform X that a veterans nonprofit in Massachusetts that helps secure transitional housing and food for more than 100 veterans was worried that, with rent due in five days, veterans might face eviction.

Other concerns abounded, including how the freeze could affect programs like the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program or the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund, which helps in the removal of lead pipes and forever chemicals from local water supplies.

Meanwhile, the Massachusetts delegation’s district directors met to compare notes on what programs were already suffering. Group chats for Democratic communications directors and chiefs of staff were similarly lively. Staff was reaching out to contacts who worked at the Office of Management and Budget, hearing that the only thing they knew for certain was the memo could have “massive implications,” according to one staffer in the delegation.

A spokesperson for Worcester Representative Jim McGovern said that McGovern spoke with the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee in the morning and staff across committees and agencies were in touch, but answers were hard to come by.

“The Congressman has had calls with constituents who are panicked about what is happening,” Matthew Bonaccorsi relayed by email. “Mayors, town administrators, local anti-poverty agencies, senior services, Meals on Wheels, chambers of commerce and business leaders, and law enforcement. There is a genuine sense of confusion, chaos, and fear — and concern about what this means for their mission and for our district.”

He added: “Hard to reassure people when Trump just assumed from Congress dictatorial control over all federal spending.”

The legal authority to pause the funding was unclear. Congress has the constitutional authority over federal spending, and Democrats claimed Trump’s actions to subvert what they authorized by law were illegal. The Trump administration characterized the pause as a temporary measure to evaluate programs for compliance.

A legal challenge was quickly filed in D.C. by nonprofits to urge an emergency intervention by the courts.

Republicans were more sanguine about the freeze, arguing it was a conventional move by the administration to get their bearings, though no similar precedent by a new administration came to mind.

Senator John Kennedy, a Louisiana Republican, said the spending freeze was a vital first step to getting the federal government deficit under control while acknowledging the OMB memo did not appear to be “artfully drafted.” Kennedy called it a “temporary freeze” to assess funding.

“I don’t think anybody’s in panic mode … anybody in the Senate or Republicans, anyway, but we’ll see how it plays out,” said North Dakota Senator Kevin Cramer. “People expected this kind of thing from a new president, particularly this president, who’s fulfilling all his promises pretty quickly. If this continues, you know, a month from now, I expect I’ll hear from people, depending on, you know, who’s whose ox is gored.”

But Cramer acknowledged that if the Medicaid portal was indeed down, “that would be a problem.”

This is a breaking news story and will be updated.