Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY):
Well, Congress does have the power of the purse and that’s why we allocate the funding and we determine what levels to what agencies.
The difference here is, he’s talking about grants and loans that are decided by bureaucrats. At the end of the day, it is not Congress — and this is one of our actual pet peeves with the process. We have too many federal bureaucrats that are sitting behind a desk, not in touch with our constituents and the needs that they have, that are making decisions on how these grants are issued into what organizations.
So I think it is warranted that there is a pause so we can reflect on how this money is being spent. But, also, I think President Trump is in his right to say that he issued 350 executive orders over the past week. A lot of those executive orders would mean certain programs that — DEI, for example, Green New Deal programs, would not be eligible any longer for federal funding.
And so to put a pause, to just review, to make sure that the grants that are being issued, our precious tax dollars, which obviously are very limited, are being — being sent to organizations that are in compliance with those agenda — the Trump agenda and the executive orders that he has issued over the last week.
I think that’s actually a fiscally responsible thing to do. We are stewards of taxpayer money, and we should want to ensure that the money is going to be spent properly.
