The federal government fell into chaos Tuesday as officials braced for potential interruptions to programs that range from protecting food safety to responding to natural disasters.

As a presidential candidate last year, Donald Trump declared that if California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) did not divert more of the state’s limited water supply to farmers, “we won’t give him money to put out all his fires. And if we don’t give him the money to put out his fires, he’s got problems.”

As director of the Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought plans to implement the most critical parts of the new Trump agenda.

Richard Stern joins “The Signal Sitdown” to discuss the players, procedures, and policy options on the table for budget reconciliation.

Presidents from both parties, including Trump, have let the budget grow and grow. The White House is trying to make changes on its own.

The Trump administration has temporarily paused grant, loan and other financial assistance programs at the Office of Management and Budget, prompting criticism from congressional Democrats.

Congressional Democrats and good-government groups say President Donald Trump 's Monday night directive to pause the distribution of trillions of dollars in federal grants and loans represents an immense power grab that would upend the constitutional separation of powers between different branches of government.

A new letter from Rhode Island's congressional delegates to the federal Office of Management and Budget asks the office to confirm that all previously approved funding for local projects will be released to the state.

The ideas being proposed could amount to more than $2 trillion of cuts to the countrys public health insurance program for low-income and disabled Americans over the next decade and could potentially push millions of people off the program.

The Trump administration has put a hold on all federal financial grants and loans, affecting tens of billions of dollars in payments.

Debt rankers appear to have been more coy in recent years on risks of developed economies than emerging markets

Those who continue distributing appropriated funds despite the freeze order are standing on firm legal ground.