Trump administration cuts $1.5 billion in health, transportation funding for 4 blue states

The Trump administration is cutting $1.5 billion in health and transportation funding for a few Democrat-run states, according to the Office of Management and Budget.

The Transportation Department will rescind $943 million from California, Colorado, Illinois, and Minnesota, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will cut $602 million from those states at the OMB's direction, The Hill reported Thursday.

While the funds from the Transportation Department are for electric vehicle chargers and green buses, the CDC funds were for state and local health grants that the administration says are too “woke.”

An OMB spokesperson told the news outlet that the cuts are targeting “states fraught with waste and mismanagement.”

The funds that the Transportation Department are eliminating include: $100 million for deployment of EV chargers in Illinois near underserved communities; $15 million for Minneapolis and St. Paul to deploy chargers in low-income and high pollution areas; $15 million for a “robust, accessible, and equitable” EV charging network for “disadvantaged communities” in nine counties around San Francisco; and $4.9 million for Colorado to install charging stations in low- and middle-income neighborhoods, according to the New York Post.

The CDC cuts include: $5.2 million for the Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago to increase use of HIV-prevention drug PrEP among black women; $3 million for Colorado to "Address COVID-19 Health Disparities Among Populations at High-Risk and Underserved, Including Racial and Ethnic Minority Populations and Rural Communities"; $988,000 for Chicago to engage with populations impacted by HIV and other sexually transmitted infections; and $500,000 for the University of California to evaluate intimate-partner violence among LGBTQ youth.

A Transportation Department spokesperson told The Hill that the department was “moving forward with executing on OMB’s plan,” but didn’t provide additional details.

Eric Maruyama, a spokesperson for Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D), told the news outlet that the state had not received official notices of canceled funds, but said that it would fight back.

“At this time, Colorado has not received any official cancellation notices from the federal administration related to these grants. There is nothing ‘woke’ about making sure American roads are safer for everyone,” Maruyama said.

“We will continue to fight back against unlawful grant terminations by the federal administration, as we have done with repeated success over the past year. For every dollar Colorado contributes to the federal government, we only get 90 cents in return, so any attempt to strip away funding to our state is absurd,” he added.