With three days to go before a government shutdown, an advocacy group that tracks federal spending warns that about $8 billion approved by Congress for health care and education is at risk of going unused.
WASHINGTON — With three days to go before a government shutdown, an advocacy group that tracks federal spending warns that about $8 billion approved by Congress for health care and education is at risk of going unused, held back by President Donald Trump's administration.
The potential "backdoor cuts" identified by the litigation-focused group Protect Democracy are an example of the way the White House, in pushing to remake the government, is setting aside agreements reached by Congress, which the Constitution gives authority over spending.It's an approach that has helped to deepen the distrust with lawmakers that has prevented an agreement on funding the government into the new fiscal year that starts on Wednesday.Lawmakers are also taking notice of the administration's approach, as Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, wrote the administration on Thursday with Sen. Cory Booker, a New Jersey Democrat, to push for full funding this year — not elimination — of 21 educational and cultural exchange State Department programs across the world. This funding was approved in a bill Trump signed into law in March.The Protect Democracy spending analysis relies on government data for select programs and is not a full accounting of the roughly $7 trillion federal budget. It found that more than 62% of funding approved by Congress this year for reducing substance abuse – about $2.6 billion for programs at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration – had not yet been obligated this month to grantees to support a range of programs for alcohol and drug use prevention, treatment, and recovery."These funds are a lifeline for communities on the front lines of the overdose crisis. Every day we wait to get resources out the door is another day communities are forced to stretch already thin systems of care," said Libby Jones, the program director of the Overdose Prevention Initiative at Global Health Advocacy Incubator.The spending analysis also found that $2.59 billion of funding for higher education support programs, about 82% approved for these Education Department programs, was not yet sent to community colleges, nonprofits, and schools for programs to assist college enrollment, low-income students and first-generation students.If these funds are not committed by the end of the fiscal year on Tuesday, the money goes into a five-year limbo until it can be canceled and returned to the federal Treasury."This i
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