In the name of government efficiency and cutting foreign spending, the Trump administration is freezing funds and furloughing workers at many federal agencies. Billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of jobs are at stake.
Locally, the federal workforce is feeling the effects, as are organizations that receive federal grants.
Telsa CEO Elon Musk is spearheading the Trump administration's cuts via his Department of Government Efficiency. Among DOGE's main targets is the U.S. Agency for International Development. Musk posted on his platform X that "USAID is a criminal organization. Time for it to die."
Vermont is home to a number of organizations that receive funds from USAID, such as , and international development firm based in Winooski.
"We've had to furlough and lay off many of our wonderful staff. It's just heartbreaking, heartbreaking, to think about the many, many, years they had invested in this professional career," said Nazgul Abdrazakova, President and CEO of Resonance Global. "In one week their career just went up in smoke."
Pauses of federal grants initiated by the White House also caused disruptions and confusion from organizations that rely on these funds.
, a group that resettles Afghan refugees in Vermont, receives grant funding from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. "On Tuesday, the 28th of January, a day that I will always remember, I logged into the federal payment management system to move funds from our grant to our bank account to keep the lights on to pay staff, and the system was completely shut down. And then we were in limbo for three weeks," said Vermont Afghan Alliance Executive Director Molly Gray. She added, "We now have to prepare for a future where this money is gone."
A federal judge has since issued a temporary restraining order to release those funds.
Yassin Hashimi is an Afghan refugee who leads the employment program at the Vermont Afghan Alliance. "The situation that we do have now is very tough," he said. "It's very unpredictable."
The Trump administration's are also leading to uncertainty in Vermont's medical research sector.
Jack Glaser is the President of , a Vermont-based biomedical research and software company that rely on NIH grants.
"Our products are being used by scientists around the world who are studying things like traumatic brain injury in our veterans and in our soldiers, autism in our children, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease 鈥� really tremendous societal problems," he said. "That research is being called into question and reduced. It's going to impact so many people, you know."
Broadcast live on Tuesday, Feb. 18, 2025, at noon; rebroadcast at 7 p.m.
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