Donald Trump Illegally Withholding $7 Billion In School Funds, No Reason, Just Being A Prick
It included help for poor and not-white kids, reason enough for the Racist In Chief.
What’s left of the US Department of Education told state education agencies across the nation Monday that they can’t have some $6.8 billion in funding they’d been expecting to be released on Tuesday as part of the normal budgeting process. The funds were passed by Congress in March as part of the continuing resolution that kept the government open, but just because Congress makes appropriations doesn’t mean Donald Trump has to release them, because Russ Vought told him the Constitution no longer applies to him. By law, the funds were supposed to be released on July 1, but again, laws are but playthings for Great Leader, who am the Law.
As Education Week explains, American school districts and state school agencies had foolishly gotten into the habit of thinking things remained somewhat normal after the Ascension to the Throne of Mad King Donald.
Thousands of school districts and dozens of states that had banked on those funds to cover staff salaries, vendor contracts, curriculum materials, technology tools, and other priorities will now have to consider slashing student services—including some mandated by federal law—or tapping other funding sources if the federal money doesn’t show up on time or at all.
We believe the operative cliché here is from former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, regarding the Medicaid cuts in the Senate’s version of the Big Murder Bill: “They’ll get over it.” Not like they have much choice, because this is Donald Trump’s country now, and not even the courts are allowed to tell him what to do anymore. At least, not in time for summer programs schools had already budgeted for.
Ed Week reports that the news came in an unsigned email from the Education Department, which specified that no funds at all would be released from five federal education programs that the administration wants to zero out. Never mind that Congress has to pass a budget to actually do that. You are once again engaging in pre-January-20 thinking, a dangerous wrongthink habit you must overcome.
Also, in case you were wondering, like the smart and very attractive Wonkette reader you are, these cuts have nothing to do with the BigCruelty MurderBill passed by the Senate Tuesday.
The affected programs are
Title I-C for migrant education ($375 million)
Title II-A for professional development ($2.2 billion)
Title III-A for English-learner services ($890 million)
Title IV-A for academic enrichment ($1.3 billion)
Title IV-B for before- and after-school programs ($1.4 billion)
We can see why President Stephen Miller would decree an end to educating children of migrant workers and kids who are learning English, because none of those children are actually Americans, whatever their birth certificates or parents’ papers say. Even permanent residents and naturalized citizens no longer belong in this country unless they work for or married into the families of top Party officials.
As for the others, those programs are all on the chopping block in the administration’s 2026 budget proposal, so it saves a lot of time to just eliminate them before Congress even debates next year’s budget. It’s not like Congress is allowed to disobey Trump either.
The Associated Press adds that the email included the usual boilerplate bullshit and magic words the administration pretends make all its unconstitutional actions okay, saying that the funds will be “reviewed” to ensure that “taxpayer resources are spent in accordance with the President’s priorities” — obviously, that’ll ignore any laws requiring allocated funds to be spent as Congress intended.
As David S. Bernstein explains, Trump’s Office of Management and Budget director Russ Vought — of Project 2025 notoriety — will likely attempt an end-run around the law with One Weird Trick known as a “pocket rescission”:
Rescission is the legal method if an administration wants to not distribute authorized funds; it requires approval from Congress. For a pocket rescision—which, for what it’s worth the Government Accountability Office deemed illegal during the first Trump term—the administration would dawdle until late September before sending the rescission request; if Congress (predictably) fails to act, the September 30 end of the government’s fiscal year renders the funds unpayable. “The clock’s run out, time’s up, over, blow,” as our de facto national poet laureate once opined.
The effects of holding back the funds will be immediate, affecting not only the coming school year, but also summer programs that have already started, such as camps and other summer programs run by the Boys and Girls Clubs of America.
In Alabama, kids and parents in Gadsden City Schools will be screwed, even though the town is 50 percent white. School officials there say that if the federal aid isn’t released, they’ll have to shut down the district’s after-school program serving more than 1,200 low-income kids, according to program director Janie Browning:
Families who rely on after-school programs would lose an important source of child care that keeps children safe and engaged while their parents work. The roughly 75 employees of the district’s after-school programs may lose their jobs.
“Those hours between after school and 6 o’clock really are the hours in the day when students are at the most risk for things that may not produce great outcomes,” Browning said. “It would be devastating if we lost the lifeline of afterschool for our students and our families.”
Perhaps Ms. Browning is simply worried about her own job and hasn’t thought this through: Without the federal government nanny-state after-school program, families will be able to send their children to work in factories, because Alabama is all in on child labor. A few kids may lose fingers or hands in horrific accidents, and be compensated with a thousand bucks or so, but overall, kids will have a place to go and the family will grow prosperous from an ethic of hard work.
In case anyone was slow on the uptake about where the orders were coming from, a second email from the Education Department said questions about the withheld funds should go to OMB, Vought’s domain. But why ask at all? The answer is “the President’s priorities,” they already said.
As with the 2026 Trump budget proposal, only two programs keep their current level of funding: Title I-A aid to schools where most students are low-income ($18.4 billion), and funding for special education under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act ($15.6 billion).
We can only assume that someone informed Trump that lots of Republican parents rely on both programs, since Title I-A helps supports lots of rural districts, not just the thug children in cities who can be disposed of. Any hint of cutting special education funding is also guaranteed to set off a huge backlash from parents in both parties, too, no matter how much Trump personally loathes people with disabilities, even in his own family. We’re sure President Miller will find workarounds for the 2027 budget so only white Republican families can use either program, in accordance with “the President’s priorities.”
There is still one hope, of course: None of this pocket rescission crap is set in stone, and people still love their public schools. Mobilize all the parents who are getting emails telling them they’ll need to find their own options for their children in a long hot summer, and the coming school year, and hell yes, we can pressure Trump and crew to release the funds.
Bring Your Bored Cranky Kids To The White House Day, anyone?
[Education Week / NYT / AP / Good Politics/Bad Politics / Photo: US Department Of Education, Creative Commons License 2.0]
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I may need to start babysitting sooner than I planned, wanted to wait till fall. Some parents might need my help if summer programs are cancelled. But I'm not cheap (at the same time I am underpaid for what I do) and that is going to be even harder on families trying to work and give their kids something to do during the summer. Summer camps are much cheaper than an hourly babysitter. And getting someone at the last minute is really hard. Good babysitters are already booked unless they are new to the area like me. I don't know what it is like in Cleveland but I am guessing parents have the same issues as NYC in this regard.
Isn't it great to live and die at the whim of an addled 79-year-old narcissist?