President Donald Trump has been trying to cut back on wasteful government spending.
More specifically, he has been trying to eliminate the funding of partisan programs and to cut expenditures that have reportedly been funneled to terrorist organizations.
A major player on that front has been funding administered by USAID, which Trump is now asking the Supreme Court to freeze after facing defeat in the lower courts.
On Jan. 20 of this year, Trump’s first day in office, he issued an executive order called “REEVALUATING AND REALIGNING UNITED STATES FOREIGN AID.”
The purpose of the order stated, “The United States foreign aid industry and bureaucracy are not aligned with American interests and in many cases antithetical to American values.”
It continued, “They serve to destabilize world peace by promoting ideas in foreign countries that are directly inverse to harmonious and stable relations internal to and among countries.”
USAID was among the first programs looked at, with Trump slashing funding to what were deemed to be wasteful or fraudulent programs.
The media and Democrats ran with the narrative that Trump was cutting all programs, but that was not the truth.
Numerous programs were given waivers, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio affirming that meaningful programs would be left intact, although they would likely be placed under another administrative umbrella.
On Feb. 6 of this year, the first lawsuit was filed, and this would begin a chain of events designed to block Trump from ending the funding to many of the programs that had previously operated under the USAID umbrella.
This set up a battle between Trump and activist groups that was destined for the U.S. Supreme Court.
Earlier this year, U.S. District Judge Amir Ali ruled that Trump had to dispense the funds, a decision that fell in line with current laws regarding congressionally allocated funds.
However, the interesting question has arisen regarding what you can do with congressionally-approved funding when you can prove it is not going where it is supposed to.
In his filing, U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued, "Congress did not upset the delicate interbranch balance by allowing for unlimited, unconstrained private suits. Any lingering dispute about the proper disposition of funds that the President seeks to rescind shortly before they expire should be left to the political branches, not effectively prejudged by the district court."
Normally, I would say that Trump would lose, but I think the administration has a case solely based on the type of funding it is looking to shut down. I wish I had more to tell you guys, but this is about as close to a coin flip as we are ever going to see.
