President Donald Trump’s obedient Republican allies in the U.S. House and Senate have mostly watched in silence as he giddily flouts constitutional safeguards for the division of power among the three branches of our government.
Here and there, though, we’re starting to hear a little chatter, a smattering of pleas, some genuine concern, about the slash-first, think-later approach to federal funding being carried out on Trump’s behalf by his co-president, Elon Musk.
Grants to help manufacturers in red states working on energy projects? That’s so yesterday. Supporting medical research at universities in red and blue states? Say bye-bye. American farmers in very red states getting paid for aid programs that feed the starving? Let ’em eat cake.
This is what it takes to get Republicans in Congress to gingerly step up to the president and say, maybe don’t destroy my state’s economy while you’re feeding the federal budget through a paper shredder.
Republicans will have to decide how much room to give Trump
My bet: Trump may issue a little reprieve here, a small request there, but he will refuse to stitch up the slashes he made in the budget because that would amount to admitting he was wrong to let Musk do the slashing. In Trump’s world, Trump is never wrong.
Spend enough time watching Washington, D.C., and you realize that members of Congress love to announce that they come first – as in Article I of the U.S. Constitution, which gives the legislature the power to pass laws and approve spending.
That’s why the collective Republican shrug as Trump repeatedly oversteps the authority granted him in Article II of the Constitution to kill spending and fire employees without regard to federal regulations is so noteworthy.
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Republicans, holding a majority in both chambers, have meekly abandoned their authority, apparently leaving all hopes of restraining Trump’s worst impulses to Article III of the Constitution – the federal judiciary, from entry level district courts to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“Constitutional crisis” is again the buzzy phrase bandied about Washington. We’ll know if we’re there if Trump openly defies an order from a federal court.
For now, all we have is the deferential entreaties of a few Republican legislators, hoping to undo some of Trump’s illogical and probably illegal spending cuts. If the courts, which have been holding back Trump and Musk, get out of the way, then more Republicans in Congress will have to decide if it’s worth the risk to their political careers to actually represent their constituents.
Trump’s government cuts are already impacting red states
The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday broke the news that Republicans in Congress who represent states with significant farm economies wanted to save $1.8 billion in food aid programs administered by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which has been recast by Trump and Musk as some sort of culture-war villain.
The solution put forth by five Republicans in the House that same day as the proposed “Food For Peace Act”: Keep spending the money in that program but make it flow instead through the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Musk hasn’t smeared the Agriculture Department as anti-American just yet. Give him time.
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Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican best known for cosplaying an independent legislator with serious concerns just before she completely capitulates to whatever Trump wants, on Monday objected to a $9 billion cut in the $35 billion budget at the National Institutes of Health for medical research.
That put her in league with Sen. Katie Britt, a reliable Republican Trump ally from Alabama, who, like Collins, pledged to work with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who was confirmed with their votes Thursday as secretary of Health and Human Services.
It’s hard to say what Kennedy is best known for. Is it the anti-science conspiracy theories? The allegations of sexual misconduct? The worm that ate part of his brain?
One thing he’s not known for – going to bat for serious medical research.
Republican lawmakers still have to represent their states
The most predictable cuts for Trump and Musk are in funding to advance the manufacturing for electric car batteries and wind and solar energy projects, as The New York Times described Monday in a story about frozen federal grants.
Musk, who in one of his other six day jobs runs the electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla, has cashed in on federal EV subsidies in the past but is now eager to cut funding to companies that could be competitors.
The Times reported that former President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which provided loans and grants for energy projects, has benefitted Republican-voting communities the most, citing research from Atlas Public Policy.
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Imagine being a red-state Republican legislator right now with howling manufacturers wanting to know why the federal funds that had been allocated to their energy projects had just vanished. Try to find the words you would use in that position to ask Trump, who fetishizes the use of oil and coal, to reconsider those cuts.
Drawing attention to problematic funding decisions can cause even more problems ‒ and squelch transparency in the process
The Associate Press reported this week that Sen. Jerry Moran, a Republican from Kansas, had been worried about $560 million in American farm-grown food going to waste as it was paused in transit to the people it was meant to feed. He thanked the Trump administration Saturday for getting that food back in transit.
That information was detailed Monday in a comprehensive report from the inspector general at USAID. Trump’s White House had a solution by Tuesday – the inspector general was fired. What will Republicans do?
Follow USA TODAY columnist Chris Brennan on X, formerly known as Twitter: @ByChrisBrennan
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump’s policies are hurting red states. Will GOP speak out? | Opinion
