January 29, 2025: What to Watch Next as Federal Program Freeze Heads to Court

 

Good morning, all—I hope folks are taking care during a hectic time, and I thank you for tolerating several emails over the last couple of days!

As you may know, a judge blocked the President’s freeze on federal programs through Monday. I cannot speak to the likelihood that this court order will be extended, nor can I confirm that the judge’s ruling has alleviated all the disruptions to essential services we saw yesterday. 

I can, however, offer my analysis below on what will be important to watch next. 

Watch what happens to programs where you live—despite what the White House claims.

The White House’s directive claims to target programs that “advance Marxist equity, transgenderism, and green new deal social engineering policies.” The White House has also insisted that “Social Security benefits, Medicare benefits, food stamps, welfare benefits, assistance that is going directly to individuals will not be impacted by this pause.”

What happened yesterday and the White House’s own list of targeted programs directly contradicts this. 

Disruptions were reported yesterday around Medicaid, which provides health care to 72 million Americans; Head Start, where hundreds of thousands of kids go to preschool; veterans’ housing; and numerous other services. 

On top of that, the White House released a list of 2,600 programs it is targeting. These include:

  • disaster relief for individuals and households; 

  • security for rail and transit systems; 

  • meat and poultry inspections amidst a bird flu outbreak; 

  • food and baby formula for low-income moms and kids; 

  • lead poisoning monitoring for kids; and 

  • thousands more services that keep kids fed and cared for, ensure our food is safe, help families recover from natural disasters, and more. 

Bottom line: do not assume a program is “safe” because it does not seem like it would be in the White House’s crosshairs. 

Watch what—and who—the President and Republicans in Congress propose spending money on next.

The White House argues that it cut off programs families depend on to ensure they’re acting as “good stewards of taxpayer dollars.” Earlier this month, though, House Republicans compiled a menu of priorities it hopes to pass soon. These include the following: 

  • lowering the corporate tax rate to 15 percent at a cost of $522 billion;

  • eliminating entirely the estate tax on multimillionaires at a cost of $370 billion; 

  • preventing the government from negotiating with pharmaceutical companies to lower drug prices at a cost of up to $20 billion; and much more. 

In contrast, disaster relief for families and individuals; rail and transit safety; food and formula for new moms and babies; and lead poisoning tests and prevention programs combined cost around $9.5 billion annually, or about $95 billion over 10 years. Just the three examples above from a 50-page menu of GOP-proposed benefits for the mega-wealthy and corporations would cost almost 10x as much. 

The White House and House Republicans’ own documents indicate that they plan to spend hundreds of billions, if not trillions, on tax giveaways to billionaires and corporations while simultaneously cutting off food for kids, disaster relief for recovering families, and much, much more. 

Speaker Johnson says Republicans could take next steps on Republicans’ spending priorities as soon as next week. We’ll be monitoring what happens and analyzing what it means—if you’d like to receive those updates, please sign up to receive this Unrig the Rules newsletter here.

Thanks, as always, for your feedback. 

 
 
Cat Rowland