The Tempest in a Teapot Memo

Tong and Blumenthal

Here is a recent passage from the Hartford Courant, a bitter response from New York Senator Chuck Schumer on President Donald Trump’s auditing pause of some federal assistant programs: “The blast radius of Trump’s terrible, unconstitutional, and illegal decision to halt virtually all federal grants and loans [to the states] is virtually limitless. And its impacts will be felt over and over and over again by families and communities across the country.”

 

Schumer really should stop panting and pandering to neo-progressives in his party and state. The Trump auditing pause may last no longer than 90 days, a time limitation overlooked by Schumer. “Blast radius” is a fear provoking touch. But the radius is diminished by its intent and purpose, which is, according to a remarkably observant story in the Hartford Courant -- “Tong calls funding freeze ‘war on the American people’” -- to create a limited pause in funding for specific programs long enough to allow the Trump administration to limit if necessary only future funding that pertains to programs under review by the new incoming administration.

 

The Courant story quotes the federal budget office as follows: “… programs like Medicaid, Head Start, food stamps, and Pell grants for college students would not be impacted… Social Security and Medicare would not be touched… The freeze on federal aid, the Courant story adds, quoting the federal budget office, “is expressly limited to programs, projects and activities implicated by the president’s executive orders, such as ending [diversity and equity programs], the green new deal and funding nongovernmental organizations that undermine the national interests.”

 

Schumer likely does not read the Courant, though he may any time he wishes contact the federal budget office for clarification, as Courant reporter Christopher Keating had done.

 

Connecticut’s Attorney General William Tong, however, is intimately familiar with the paper, as was his predecessor Dick Blumenthal, for twenty years Connecticut’s Attorney General, about whom it has often been said, “There is no more dangerous spot in Connecticut as that between Blumenthal and a television camera.” A frequently flattering presence in Connecticut’s media launched not only Blumenthal, but his predecessor as well, the late Joe Lieberman, into the U.S. Senate. Tong appears to have set his feet on the same well-worn path.

 

Tong, we discover in the Courant story, “joined, with more than 20 other attorneys general, including from New York and California, in filing a lawsuit that says Trump’s unilateral moves are unconstitutional because Congress allocates federal money.”

 

Here is Tong in high dungeon: “This is a full assault on Connecticut families-- an unprecedented and blatantly lawless and unconstitutional attack on every corner and level of our government and economy. Attorneys general across the country are preparing imminent legal action to protect our states. Connecticut and my team are front and center in this fight and will provide updates in real time to Connecticut as this unfolds. Today is not a day for politics-- everyone irrespective of party should be standing with Connecticut against this devastating attack on our state.”

 

And U.S. Senator Chris Murphy who handles propaganda as if he were a 12-year-old pulling pins on grenades, is following close behind: “This is what a king does. This is not how a democracy works. One man does not decide how taxpayers’ money is spent so that it only gets sent to the President's political friends, and it gets used to punish his political enemies. The scope of the damage that will be done is enormous to poor kids who rely on Head Start programs, to families who desperately need that cancer research done, to veterans who, if they miss one or two appointments, their life falls apart suddenly overnight.”

 

Murphy has yet to condemn as fulsomely former President Joe Biden, whose wayward son – now pardoned by Biden – managed to steer millions in funds from foreign adversaries like China to members of his family, also pardoned proscriptively by Biden.

 

The offending memo issued by the Trump administration’s Office of Management and Budgets on Monday was withdrawn two days after being issued on Wednesday – more a tempest in a teapot than a sustained assault on Constitutional liberties. The withdrawal notice was two sentences long but, the Associated Press (AP) advised, “the decision to pull the directive was a significant reversal and the first major capitulation by a president who since returning to the White House has not hesitated to use his executive power to reshape the federal government in his image and rid the workforce of any dissent.”

 

The AP report also includes a disclaimer of sorts. According to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, “The Executive Orders issued by the President on funding reviews remain in full force and effect and will be rigorously implemented by all agencies.” The agencies affected remain constitutionally a part of the Executive Department. Tong and other state attorneys general are not constitutionally authorized to direct the head of the U.S. Executive Department precisely how the executive should oversee his or her Constitutional obligations.

 

In the meantime, there is some cause for rejoicing. President Trump has now been in office officially for 10 days as of this writing and, despite all the alarms raised by neo-progressives clutching their pearls in mock fright, the Republic still stands.