This op-ed originally appeared on the Washington Examiner. Click here to read the full article.
By Timothy Head
British politician Dennis Healey wisely advised, “When you’re in a hole, the first rule is to stop digging.” The national debt might be the world’s deepest grave, surpassing $36 trillion with a deficit projected at $1.3 trillion for this fiscal 2025 alone. It’s no wonder Americans cast aside career gravediggers in both parties and elected a private sector builder to tame bureaucratic bloat.
With the U.S. now spending more on interest on the debt than on national defense, our national security, along with our moral obligation to our children and future generations, requires tough, belt-tightening decisions. Ensuring public safety and a fair justice system is, unlike much of what government does, a core function, but it cannot be sacrosanct from the imperative to streamline government.
For this reason, the administration’s controversial decision to cancel about 350 Department of Justice grants initially valued at more than $800 million was a step toward righting our fiscal ship by focusing spending on carrying out the federal government’s enumerated powers specified in the Constitution.
The canceled programs, many of which involved non-profits in partnerships with local and state criminal justice agencies, fall into two categories. The first, much smaller one encompasses activities that are wasteful or inconsistent with conservative principles. Most of the funds, though, fall into the second category, underwriting commendable efforts that state and local governments should support to prevent street crime and help victims in cases prosecuted in state courts. But such work is unmoored from the limited role in addressing crime that the Constitution gives the federal government.
In the first category, Attorney General Pam Bondi noted one of the terminated grants directed $250,000 to provide gender-affirming care and gender-appropriate housing for incarcerated transgender individuals. Similarly, on May 2, President Donald Trump released his proposed budget, which wisely proposes eliminating a $2 million grant to a Puerto Rican nonprofit organization that focuses on addressing “structural racism and toxic masculinities.”
