Trump Takes Aim at Grant Spending in New Executive Order

President Donald Trump on Aug. 7 signed an executive order that takes aim at federal grant spending, seeking to tighten parameters to receive approval for such grants and subject grant award decisions to evaluation by executive appointees.

“Every tax dollar the Government spends should improve American lives or advance American interests. This often does not happen,” the executive order says. “Federal grants have funded drag shows in Ecuador, trained doctoral candidates in critical race theory, and developed transgender-sexual-education programs.”

The order comes as Trump’s administration seeks wide-ranging cuts to federal spending on a variety of projects and services, as well as reductions to the size of the federal bureaucracy and other spending reductions.

The administration has also sought to force institutional changes by threatening to withdraw federal funding over issues like pro-Palestinian protests, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, and others.

Several Ivy League schools, in particular, have faced the threat of losing federal funding over policies that the administration accused of enabling anti-Semitism, DEI, or anti-meritocratic policies.

In a fact sheet, the White House said that moving forward, federal grants will “undergo more rigorous evaluation” by Trump’s appointed officials “to verify that each grant dollar benefits Americans instead of lining grantees’ pocketbooks or furthering causes that damage America.”

The White House has indicated that the goal of these evaluations will be reducing the presence of taxpayer funding that goes to projects, organizations, or individuals who promote left-wing or anti-American ideas.

It prohibited the use of federal grants to fund “any … initiatives that compromise public safety or promote anti-American values.”

The executive order and White House fact sheet both reference the National Science Foundation (NSF) as an example, with the executive order stating that NSF grants have gone to “educators that promoted Marxism, class warfare propaganda, and other anti-American ideologies in the classroom, masked as rigorous and thoughtful investigation.”

The White House accused the NSF of spending millions on designing “AI-powered social media censorship tools.”

According to the executive order, moving forward, “discretionary awards must, where applicable, demonstrably advance the President’s policy priorities.”

Experts in the subject matter areas would work with political appointees to make decisions about grant awards, the order said.

In the past, the White House said, federal grants have been used to support “dangerous, harmful projects that undermine national security and fundamental rights.”

The White House referenced the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which was funded in part by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), saying it was was “the most likely source” of the COVID-19 pandemic.

NIH funds were used to fund gain-of-function research.

The White House also condemned the use of grant funding for “free services for illegal immigrants, as well as organizations that worked against American interests abroad.”