Biden reverses Trump last-minute attempt to freeze $27.4 billion in programs

President Biden on Sunday sent a letter to congressional leaders reversing former President Trump’s last-minute attempt to freeze $27.4 billion in government programs.

Trump had moved, with less than a week left in his term, to freeze the billions in federal funding using a budget maneuver called rescission.

“I am withdrawing 73 proposed rescissions previously transmitted to the Congress,” Biden said in the letter.

The 73 budget reductions that Trump had called for were spread across almost every Cabinet-level agency and mostly lined up with his proposed cuts to domestic program spending in the 2021 federal budget that were rejected by Congress. 

Trump had sent a letter to congressional leadership on Jan. 14 asking for the rescissions, including for the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities and the Peace Corps. 

Several Democrats in Congress, including House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), dismissed the president’s requests for cuts right before Biden’s inauguration. 

The former president had previously signed the $2.3 trillion government funding bill in December, which included the most recent COVID-19 relief package, but had expressed dissatisfaction, saying he would ask for “wasteful items” to be removed.