Freeze Frame – Martinsburg Journal

I usually do not write about national policy in this space. When I cover national policy, it is usually through the delegation of the Congress of Western Virginia. My focus is on state -level policy.

However, last week temporarily freezing the financing of the federal grant from the White House Management and Budget Office (Omb) – now it remained and canceled – it really collected a national and state policy because no other country would probably be affected by this freezing More than Western Virginia.

According to the note, federal agencies had to review all financial assistance to ensure that these programs do not finance initiatives for diversity, justice and inclusion (DEI), environmental policies from former President Joe Biden, transgency or other “social engineering or other” social engineering “Policies.

It is unclear whether OMB is following President Donald Trump or a functioning scammer. The Atlantic Ocean reported that Omb had no prior approval from the White House to issue this note and that Trump’s employees were as surprised as the rest of us when this note was first announced by Washington Post on Monday night S

This does not explain why it seems that the White House took ownership of the note on Tuesday and is the result of chaos, including the accusation of the media in pushing fake news. According to the note, freezing was not to affect social security, medicare or other direct assistance to individuals. But something tells me that White House employees do not understand the financing of the federal grant.

In the fiscal 2023, West Virginia received about $ 7.2 billion federal grants, 60% of it coming from Medicaid. But 40%, or about $ 2.9 billion, came to the state through other federal subsidies. These are a gratuitous means of community development. These are different forms of transportation of transport. This is a temporary help for needy families (TANF).

This is also funding for a free and reduced school lunch. The Deputy Chief of Trump Staff Stephen Miller has accused the media of disseminating incorrect information that the free/reduced student lunch will be stopped under the federal freezing, since the Omb note does not directly fund persons. However, the free/reduced lunch program is not paid directly to individual families. For families who qualify, the school system receives federal funding.

I know this because because of the growth in a low -income family, we qualified for a free school lunch almost all the time in the school of schools in Pleasants. So if you freeze the federal funding for a free/reduced school lunch, it can have a direct effect on people, even if it was not the intention.

And all this about pursuing a specific funding for DEI or the Green New Deal? Whatever he thinks about the programs, wouldn’t the better thing to do was understand what programs these initiatives finance and freeze those against the freezing of everything that awaits the review? As I tell you, if the freezing came into force and lasted for several weeks, it would be noticed in Western Virginia.

Western Virginia is a very pro-thrump condition, but I have to wonder how long would this last when the programs that Western Virginians depend on began to stop working for them? Undoubtedly, the questions of DEI, the transgender and the green new deal bring voters of the ballot box. But part of me wishes from the federal freezing would take effect to see how long these voters would go along with the freezing.

I quoted HL Mencken in my previous column: “Democracy is the theory that ordinary people know what they want, and they deserve to achieve it well and hard.” I think this quote applies again to this situation. If this is what you voted for, then you get it.

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We are just over a week since the regular West Virginia session in 2025, which will mean 60 days of stories from me as legislators, although thousands of accounts that accept about 200 bills.

I can’t decide if this will be a busy session. On the one hand, we have a new governor who will fuck the lifestyle to run his agenda, and the GOP supermism ready to work with him. But also, we have many new faces in both the House and the State Senate. This, combined with a new process for moving bills through new permanent committees and subcommittees to the House, and there is a real training curve that will delay the bills.

I suspect this is a kind of design. The process of the Chamber’s new committee should mean that only bills that members really want to do so, and bills that have become distractions in the past are probably not perceived. However, my anxiety is how this new process will work closer to the end of the session, when more bills in the Senate begin to pass.

There may be real congestion, the closer we get to the 60th day of April 12. I hope that the chamber and the Senate leadership is talking about these problems now before we enter the dense of things.