Donald Trump announces budget lock – judge stops him

A US federal court has temporarily put the expenditure stop for federal funds imposed by President Donald Trump on hold. Federal judge Loren Alikhan gave an urgent application to an interest group on Tuesday, which had argued that the expenditure stop could endanger thousands of federal programs from health care to road construction.

The budget lock ordered by the Trump administration had triggered confusion and anger in the United States. With the drastic step, a large number of state grants and loans are to be frozen, as can be seen from the arrangement of the household office in the White House (omb) known on Tuesday. The opposition democrats called the lock “unconstitutional”.

The government wants to check which of the spending programs with the “priorities” of Trump and are continued. According to the OMB, payments to non-governmental organizations, for the conversion of the energy supply to climate-friendly forms of energy or for diversity and equality programs, are to be blocked for the time being. However, the lock could also stop loans for small business owners and grants for students – the two -sided memo of the omb left open how far -reaching the expenditure lock should be, and therefore donated a lot of confusion.

At the end of September 2024, the US federal government’s funding and aid programs had a total volume of more than three trillion dollars (2.9 trillion euros). All of these expenses had been decided by the congress.

How long the budget lock should apply was opened to the federal authorities on Monday. The “provisional break” in the government pays the time to review and decide which of the programs “with the law and priorities of the president,” said the incumbent omb director Matthew Vaeth.

He announced that the financial aid should be used in the future to mitigate the burdens of inflation, to boost the country’s energy industry and industry and to “end the ‘woken'”. “Wokeness” is a term that right -wing circles use for programs and initiatives to support minorities and women. Trump had denounced such measures as discrimination against white men in the election campaign.

In the omb statement dated on Monday, however, only a few of the programs affected by the lock are specifically listed. However, as it says, social assistance (social security) and state health insurance Medicare for seniors and disabled people are excluded from the lock.

Medicaid health insurance, on the other hand, is affected by the measure, according to politicians of the Democrats. Even before the planned entry into force of the budget lock, Medicaid’s Internet portals were no longer accessible. It was the “blatant attempt to snatch millions of Americans overnight” with fatal consequences for people, the Senator Ron Wyden wrote from the west coast state of Oregon in online service X.

The Medicaid Welfare, jointly financed by the US federal government and the states, offers millions of people, children, seniors and disabled health insurance protection.

According to several non -governmental organizations, judge Loren Alikhan exposed the drastic lock until February 3. There is a risk of a “non -resolving damage again,” she said according to the agreed media reports. In addition to the organizations, the general prosecutors of more than 20 democratically ruled states also made a separate lawsuit to block the arrangement.

The decision was made just a few minutes before the planned entry into force of the measure. The court will deal with the case again on Monday.

The leader of the Democrats in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, described the budget lock as “unconstitutional” and “dangerous, destructive, cruel”. With regard to government aid for the citizens, he spoke of a “dagger into the heart of the American average family”.

For his part, Schumer announced that the Democrats fight against the blockage of expenditure “in any way in which we can” fight. According to the US constitution, the parliament and not the government have the decision-making power over the budget. Trump’s republicans have the majority in both houses of the congress. But the lock concerns expenses that had already been adopted by the congress.

Trump’s spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt described the expenditure lock as a “very responsible measure”. She assured that the website could soon be reached again and stated that the task of the new government was to ensure that “accounts for every penny”. Leavitt did not answer a question of whether Medicaid recipients should become sneering from insurance protection. Trump’s high -ranking consultant Stephen Miller later told the broadcaster CNN that the measure did not target Medicaid.

Trump has set himself the goal of significantly reducing government expenses and the US government’s administrative apparatus. The new Foreign Minister Marco Rubio had already had freezing almost all foreign aid last week.

By email, the Trump government also offered the federal officials on Tuesday to give up their position in return for the further payment of eight months of their salary. A high -ranking administrative officer told NBC News that the White House expects five to ten percent of the employees to leave their workplace. Savings of around $ 100 billion will be assumed.