President Donald Trump surprised a Cabinet meeting by
announcing that his administration will make permanent cuts targeting only
Democratic-backed programs in response to the Democratic-led government
shutdown.
“We will make permanent cuts to Democratic programs. ONLY
Democratic programs. Russ [Vought]… we will cut some very popular Democratic
programs that are not popular with Republicans!”
“That’s how it works! They wanted to do this. So we’ll give
them a taste of their own medicine.”
The comments drew immediate criticism, suggesting that the
cuts are not so much a matter of budgetary concerns as a political strategy to
hurt the opposition’s electoral base, because the opposition is hurting the
country.
Trump did not offer specific details about which programs
will be affected or to what extent.
In previous administrations, his administration had already
frozen infrastructure funding in Democratic-led cities and canceled climate
change projects in states that typically vote Democratic.
Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russ Vought
has endorsed the strategy and participated in defining the cuts under the
auspices of reducing the size of the federal government.
This cutback policy is linked to Project 2025, a plan
promoted by conservatives to reorganize the federal government, cut agencies,
and centralize executive power.
By stating that the cuts will be limited exclusively to
"Democratic programs," Trump admits that the measure is motivated by
partisan motives (because that's how Democratic lawmakers are behaving), rather
than by efficiency or spending reduction criteria.
Local governments that depend on federal subsidies face a
high risk if their programs are singled out for cuts, but even so, the
Democrats remain in a position to continue harming the country with their whim
to keep the federal government shut down.