Get ready for President Trump to start doing some cutting. The Democrats have handed President Trump one big set of scissors and cutting has already started. This is the first act of Trump's blades:
President Donald Trump's administration will withhold $2.1 billion for Chicago infrastructure projects, the White House budget director said Friday, expanding funding fights that have targeted Democratic areas during the government shutdown.
The pause affects a long-awaited plan to extend the city’s Red Line train. The money was “put on hold to ensure funding is not flowing via race-based contracting,” budget director Russ Vought wrote on social media.
Vought made a similar announcement earlier this week involving New York, where he said $18 billion for infrastructure would be paused, including funding for a new rail tunnel under the Hudson River.
Trump, a Republican, has embraced Vought’s tactics. On Thursday night, he posted a video depicting him as the reaper, wearing a hood and holding a scythe.
Trump the reaper? Sounds about right. Another "cancel" is one of California's Newsom's Favorite Green Energy Grants:
The Department of Energy canceled a $630.6 million Biden-era grant that would have funded green energy projects in California, and which Gov. Gavin Newsom (D.) praised as "critical" to the state, the Washington Free Beacon has learned.
According to internal agency documents, Trump Energy Department officials determined that the grant would have been used primarily to support new solar and wind energy projects. State leaders said they planned to use the funding to upgrade 100 miles of transmission lines to enable more green energy to come online as part of the California Energy Commission's so-called CHARGE 2T program.
The point is that President Trump will not miss an opportunity to cut government programs. At the same time, the Democrats gave him the opportunity by shutting down all those federal agencies.
How much cutting will we see? It depends on how long this shutdown goes. My guess is that it will be short because the GOP has a better explanation -- let's keep the government open during our negotiations. The Democrats seem to be carrying water for their angry base, people more interested in fighting with Trump than making rational decisions about the budget.
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Image: AT via Magic Studio