More Than $400 Billion in Federal Funds Are Being Withheld, Say Democratic Lawmakers

A program run by the Democratic leaders of Congress’s appropriations committees suggests $412 billion in planned funding has been suspended or canceled.

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) speaks to reporters at a press conference on Capitol Hill in Washington on Sept. 3, 2025. Madalina Kilroy/The Epoch Times

WASHINGTON—The Trump administration has allegedly frozen or terminated a total of $412 billion of federal funds for research, national security, and economic development initiatives, according to a tracker developed by the Democratic leaders of the appropriations committees of Congress.

The funds comprise 124 different grants and budget appropriations that were allocated for the 2024–2025 fiscal year. The Democratic ranking members of the appropriations committees of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives say that all these funds are being improperly withheld by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which directs their disbursement from the Treasury.

“President [Donald] Trump continues to block hundreds of billions of dollars that have been signed into law, and it is families, farmers, small businesses, and communities in every part of the country who are suffering the consequences,” Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), ranking member of the House counterpart, wrote in a joint statement in June about their findings.

Murray and DeLauro jointly operate a digital tracker that is periodically updated with new information about funds withheld.

The list of funds withheld describes a wide array of items, such as $8.9 billion in grants to the National Institutes of Health and $500 million to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for medical research into cures for diseases. For the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, $19.5 billion of funds have been terminated, comprising 16,000 contracts for services. More than $5.1 billion of funds for colleges and universities has been frozen amid claims by the administration of violations of Title VII of the Education Amendments Act of 1972.

The biggest impoundment of funds, according to the tracker, has been of grant programs run by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which amounted to $96.7 billion. These grants were previously disbursed by the agency to states and municipalities to help mitigate disasters, such as fires and hurricanes, and to combat terrorism and secure critical infrastructure.

Also tracked by the Murray–DeLauro program is $37 billion of funding formerly allocated to the U.S. Agency for International Development, which was shut down by the administration and whose activities have been reassigned to the Department of State, with the amount of aid disbursed being considerably smaller.

The Office of Management and Budget has variably defended the funding suspensions, sometimes claiming that the grants were under review while otherwise invoking the president’s authority under the Impoundment Control Act of 1974.

“Pocket rescissions continue to exist as a lawful tool available to the Executive Branch to reduce unnecessary spending,” the OMB wrote in a social media post on Sept. 3.