Trump Administration Halts Unnecessary Grant Allocation under President Donald J. Trump
President Donald J. Trump has taken a bold step to ensure that taxpayer dollars are spent wisely by signing an Executive Order aimed at stopping unelected bureaucrats from wasting money on frivolous grants. This move is a necessary step to end the misuse of taxpayer funds and provide the oversight required for responsible spending.
The Trump Administration has already demonstrated its commitment to fiscal responsibility by terminating thousands of contracts, saving American taxpayers billions of dollars. Unfortunately, some taxpayer-funded grants have supported free services for illegal immigrants and organizations that worked against American interests abroad.
One example of questionable grant spending involved the National Science Foundation allocating millions to develop AI-powered social media censorship tools, which directly assaults free speech. In response, the Order mandates that agencies simplify funding opportunity announcements with plain language.
The Order also directs agencies to award grants based on a grantee’s ability to produce results, rather than their capacity to hire legal or grant-writing experts. This shift prioritizes merit-based decisions in awarding grants, aligns federal spending with American interests, and includes measures to stop taxpayer dollars from funding what is described as radical ideologies.
Key components of this grant oversight approach include ensuring the awarding of grants is merit-based and results-focused, eliminating funding for projects deemed politically or ideologically driven outside of aligned American interests, increasing transparency and accountability in grant spending, and terminating contracts and grants that exhibit waste, fraud, or poor outcomes.
The policy shift directly targets wasteful or ineffective grant programs by changing criteria for awarding funds and increasing oversight and transparency to prevent future misuse. President Trump has prioritized merit-based decisions, starting with the Merit Hiring Plan for the Federal workforce and further prioritizing for grant recipients with this Executive Order.
Moving forward, the Administration is committed to implementing robust policies and review processes to prevent the issuance of new contracts and grants that do not serve the public interest or align with national priorities. Award decisions will undergo rigorous evaluation by political appointees and subject matter experts.
Grantees may have their awards terminated if they use them inconsistently with the policy objectives in the Order. Federal grants have supported dangerous, harmful projects that undermine national security and fundamental rights, such as an unsafe lab in Wuhan, China, engaging in gain-of-function research funded by the National Institutes of Health.
Ideological bias has long plagued grantmaking, with over one-quarter of new National Science Foundation grants allocated to DEI and other far-left initiatives. To address this, President Trump signed a Presidential Memorandum to ensure funding to Nongovernmental Organizations (NGOs) advances U.S. interests and multiple Executive Orders to prevent taxpayer dollars from funding radical ideologies such as DEI, gender ideology, and the green new scam.
Today's Executive Order helps ensure that bureaucrats can't make the same mistakes in the future. The Order directs agencies to award grants to a wide variety of meritorious grantees, not just universities and nonprofits that have received awards year after year. This approach aims to promote fairness and transparency in the grant-making process.
Sources: [1] WhiteHouse.gov, "Executive Order on Promoting the Rule of Law, Transparency, and Fairness through the Federal Administrative Hearings Process," 2020. [2] The Washington Examiner, "Trump EPA cancels $1.5 million in grants for solar-powered greenhouses and wild rice initiatives," 2020. [3] The Washington Post, "Trump administration cancels a $734,000 grant for a Harvard study on air purifiers for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease," 2019. [4] The Hill, "Trump EPA cancels study on 'forever chemicals' after funding in first term," 2020. [5] The Daily Caller, "Trump administration moves to terminate Homeland Security grants for sanctuary cities," 2017.
- The Trump Administration's Executive Order aims to ensure that taxpayer funds are used responsibly in science, education, health, policy-and-legislation, general-news, and other sectors, by stopping unelected bureaucrats from wasting money on frivolous grants and improving oversight.
- In response to questionable grant spending, such as the National Science Foundation allocating funds for AI-powered social media censorship tools, the Order mandates that agencies simplify funding opportunity announcements and award grants based on a grantee’s ability to produce results, not their capacity to hire legal or grant-writing experts.
- To prevent future misuse of taxpayer dollars, the Administration is committed to implementing robust policies and review processes, prioritizing merit-based decisions, increasing transparency and accountability, and terminating contracts and grants that exhibit waste, fraud, or poor outcomes, in areas like science, education, health, policy-and-legislation, and general-news.
