The Trump administration’s freeze on federal aid is an attack on our state and local community.

It will harm all of us in crucial ways if it is not stopped immediately. It will harm people from every state, whether blue, red, or purple. Yes, a judge has blocked the move, but that is only temporarily. 

I’ll leave it to others to explain how the move is likely illegal. We need to acknowledge, though, that the president withholding funds approved by Congress cuts directly against a core pillar of our constitutional system, the separation of powers. Like other would-be dictators, Trump is trying to weaken a rival center of power, the U.S. Congress. 

This Republican attack on funding well-established priorities is based on an entirely false premise, that Trump has a mandate. First, Donald Trump only won the 2024 election by a margin of 1.5 percentage points in the popular vote. For comparison Joe Biden beat Trump by 4.4 percentage points in the 2020 election. Moreover, Trump, unlike Biden in 2020, did not win a majority of the votes cast. (In 2024, Trump won a plurality of the votes) 

Second, throughout the campaign, Republicans disavowed their connection to Project 2025, the apparent blueprint for these budgetary shenanigans. During the campaign, they did not run on this agenda; they ran from it. You cannot claim a mandate if you (falsely) told people you had no connection to the agenda.

Government programs play a central, positive role in the lives of many Americans of all political persuasions. When Republicans stop funding for cancer research, preschool education, equality, and health care (e.g. Medicaid), many people needlessly suffer and society ends up paying much higher costs. Both Trump’s immediate freeze, and its philosophical anti-government underpinning, will harm our society. 

For example, the Republican spending freeze could shutter pre-school programs (think Head Start), leaving parents without child care. As U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy explained, “Preschools cannot pay staff and will need to start laying off staff very soon and sending little kids home.” Without child care, parents might have to quit their jobs. The young children would be without quality care; it is not unreasonable to think their intellectual and social development could suffer. The Trump move is bad for education but good for raising unemployment.  

Republicans have since said some programs are exempt to this blanket ban. But think of the inefficiency and chaos this inept rollout has already created. For instance, some government websites suddenly are not working. 

Will K-12 education lose funding? We are in the middle of the school year when school plans have been made based on existing funding streams. If Republicans ran a company like this, it would be out of business in no time.  

Some of the most vulnerable people in our society who depend upon federal programs to eat and stay healthy could well suffer. Take one example. Will funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children be maintained? There are conflicting reports.

For Republicans, maybe the point is to deny children education and food or to block advances in cancer research. Maybe the cruelty is the point. 

Or maybe the point is to crash our democratic system. If Republicans in Congress can pass new laws to deny funding for child care or block infant formula for babies, I will dislike the outcome but I’ll accept the process by which the changes came about. But if all they can do is refuse to implement programs and spend money that has already been properly and legally allocated, then we have the absolute right to push back and demand that the president and his party follow the existing laws and procedures.

On a day-to-day basis, the federal government plays an important and constructive role on so many issues in the United States, helping all people regardless of their political views. That federal commitment to all of us is a key to the best of America. Residents of Connecticut, and of every state, are absolutely correct to demand that our tax dollars continue to be used for aiding and developing U.S. society.

Jeremy Pressman lives in West Hartford,