Biden will try to unlock the freezies on January 20th, which will automatically expire 45 days after Trump imposes the cutoff if Congress does not approve them….Most Republicans will NOT support the cuts….
Another way of Trump trying to flex as a lame duck President….
U.S. foreign aid officials had been expecting some sort of effort by the White House to freeze their funding, ever since Trump blasted the bipartisan coronavirus stimulus and spending bill passed by Congress last week. In a surprise video statement, Trump criticized aid going to Cambodia, Myanmar (also known as Burma), Egypt, Pakistan and Central America, among other programs.
Trump signed the bill into law on Sunday night, but then issued a statement saying he would demand “many rescissions” under the Impoundment Control Act, which allows the president to temporarily freeze certain funding, after sending a notice to Congress on the amount of the proposed rescission and the reasons for it. If Congress does not pass legislation approving the rescission within 45 days, the funds are unfrozen and must be spent as Congress originally intended.
The 45-day clock runs only when Congress is in session, and the Trump administration will be able to freeze the funds through Jan. 20, when President-elect Joe Biden takes office.
The Trump administration, which over its four years in office repeatedly tried to cut foreign aid in its formal budgets only to be rebuffed by Congress, has used the rescission process as a tool to make it harder for the State Department and USAID to spend money. Last year, it tried to use the bureaucratic move to cancel up to $4 billion in foreign aid, but scrapped the plan after facing opposition from Republican and Democratic lawmakers….