sh.itjust.works

edit: Seems to be stopped for now, the white house has recinded the memo, we'll see what the fallout is from here.

The memo itself

Congressional Democrats response

#Iowa GOP response

Reynolds: worse than nothing

Nunn: nothing

Hinson: nothing

Miller-meeks: nothing

Feenstra: nothing

Grassley: hasn't made a statement, but he seems to be focusing more on the inspector general firings

Ernst: nothing, most recent statement is about cutting SNAP benefits that came out after the grant and loan freeze

I'm not an expert in federal grant programs in Iowa, obviously it's bad, but it's hard to do something about it without a more comprehensive accounting of what exactly it does to us. I will be updating this post sorting by policy area as I find things, please feel free to share what you find.

#Food security

Governor Reynolds has refused to accept federal summer EBT for multiple years now but this did not directly affect food security within the school year. Iowa had 29 million meals provided through the federal free and reduced lunch program in Iowa in the 22-23 school year that's in jeopardy.

SNAP itself might be more of a grey area since the memo says it doesn't apply to direct individual benefits (I don't fully believe that personally). 259k recipients in Iowa in 2024

#Healthcare

supposedly mediciad isn't going to be affected. one should hope so because there's 1.5million visits paid for by medicaid in Iowa a year

#Education

13.6% of Iowa school funding came from federal sources in 2021-22

#Disaster preparedness

tba

Federal agencies must "temporarily pause all activities related to obligation or disbursement of all federal financial assistance," and any other programs that included "DEI, woke gender ideology and the Green New Deal," Vaeth wrote.

Vaeth suggested that the pause would last until at least mid-February, asking agencies to provide a detailed report on the programmes that have been affected by 10 February.

He specifies that Medicare and Social Security benefits are not included in the pause. Other programmes through which aid "is received directly by individuals" are also exempt.

But it remains uncertain how much money is involved. The memo suggests that the federal government spent $10tn (£8tn) in fiscal year 2024, more than $3tn of which went to federal financial assistance. But the source of those numbers is unclear. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office reported that the government spent $6.7tn that year.

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