1. United States
2. Ariz.
3. Letter

As your constituent, I am urging you to use your congressional authority to assert the power of the purse and block Trump’s funding rescissions by including enforceable language in any final funding agreements that ensures the funding you’ve included in bipartisan spending bills reaches the communities and people it is intended to serve. I support increased funding for human needs programs, but it’s not enough to just enact funding for these programs in annual spending bills; Congress must ensure those funds are used in the way they were intended. So far, President Trump and OMB Director Russell Vought have cancelled or frozen more than $410 billion in funding for programs, including over $1 billion in substance use and mental health treatment, $250 million for school-based mental health grants (impacting over 200 programs in 30 states), $500 million from the Emergency Food Assistance Program, $1.7 billion from programs that help communities transition to clean energy, $311 million to develop preschool programs, and $70 million from legal services that help unaccompanied children. When finalizing your government funding bills, Congress must include explicit and enforceable instructions on how the Trump administration must spend those allocated funds, and by when. I’m counting on you to stand up against so-called “pocket rescissions”, and for you to require that rescissions of appropriated funds are approved by the House and Senate Appropriations Committees and cannot be passed by a simple majority in the Senate. Congress must include enforceable language in any final funding agreements that ensures the administration sticks to funding deals—so that the funding for basic nutrition assistance, preschool, mental health and substance abuse programs, and more that you have included in bipartisan spending bills reaches the communities and people it is intended to serve.