The cuts to several states come amid an escalating fraud fallout fueled by a dubious YouTube investigation of Minnesota day cares.
The Trump administration on Monday said it had slashed billions in social services funds to a handful of blue states as part of its escalating response to new and unproven fraud allegations in Minnesota.
The Department of Health and Human Services will freeze $10 billion worth of federal grants to California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, and New York, an HHS official told HuffPost, confirming news first reported by The New York Post.
It’s not clear whether the freeze was inspired by specific fraud allegations or solely for political reasons. Officials did not immediately provide a public explanation.
The executive doesn’t have that unilateral authority. What he’s doing is illegal; unconstitutional, even.
“No taxation without representation” ring any bells?
Laws don’t fucking matter when the systems that hold the corrupt accountable have been subverted by the very corrupt they meant to police.
If Trump’s actions are illegal or unconstitutional, the reason is not related to “No taxation without representation.” Minnesota has representation in the Senate and in the House.
Wrong. By unilaterally withholding congressionally-allocated tax funds (which is unconstitutional), he’s using executive power to bypass Congress.
In other words, the representational branch of the US government is being boxed out of their constitutional duty to allocate federal funds. The people’s elected representatives are not having the final say on how that tax money is being distributed, as the constitution prescribes.
The people are still paying taxes. Their elected representatives are being bypassed (unconstitutionally) by the executive, who is unilaterally withholding congressionally-allocated tax funds. That is not what it means to have representation.
He is not wrong.
Yes, he is. Congressional representation being bypassed by unilateral executive overreach is effectively the same thing as “no representation.”
He can do whatever he wants. No one is stopping him. Your system needs to be torn down and rebuilt.
Is that you volunteering to throw the first brick?
I’m not allowed into your country, so I’m not really sure how to help you with that
Bummer dude, it’s a shithole here. You’re not missing much. Many of us want out.
Having the authority is inversely proportional to the rest of the government having a spine.
They’re spineless, so he has the authority.
What authority he has is spelled out in the constitution, and the authority to do what he’s doing is given to Congress. Doing it without congressional approval is unconstitutional.
Congress and the judiciary being spineless or complicit doesn’t confer authority. It might give him the leeway to overstep his authority, but that doesn’t change the fact that he doesn’t have the authority.
Let’s not muddy the waters. He would love for you to believe he does have the authority.