Days before departing the White House for the last time as president, Donald Trump ordered a freeze of $27.4 billion in government programs using a budget maneuver called rescission. On Sunday, President Joe Biden sent a letter to congressional leaders reversing the order.
“I am withdrawing 73 proposed rescissions previously transmitted to the Congress,” Biden said in the letter.
Biden’s action reverses Trump’s order 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.
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.
