Will Grant Freeze Affect the 540?
By Martin Davis
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Email Martin
On Monday, the White House announced “a pause to all grants and loans disbursed by the federal government,” according to the Washington Post. The move has created considerable confusion about what is and isn’t affected.
The Advance has reached out to local school districts, as well as Germanna Community College and the University of Mary Washington to see what impacts, if any, they anticipate.
At press time, the Advance had heard from Germanna Community College, Stafford Public Schools, and Fredericksburg City Public Schools. The bottom line? There’s a lot of questions that remain to be answered.
Germanna College President Janet Gullickson told the Advance via email that the community college was not sure how it would be affected. In a second email, however, she did report: “I understand that the Department of Education has officially stated that Pell Grants and Loans are NOT covered by yesterday’s OMB memorandum.”
Sandra Osborne, chief communications officer for Stafford County Public Schools, said that the question is “one that we need more information from the government on to answer. We expect this clarification to come after Feb 10.”
Jen Brody, CFO for Fredericksburg City Schools, told the Advance: “Like all school divisions, we rely on federal funding to support our neediest students. We are looking at all possible impacts of the executive order in order to mitigate the impacts. However, without more information, we can’t fully assess the situation at this time.”
Stay with the Advance as we cover how President Donald Trumps executive orders are affecting the 540.
Local Obituaries
To view local obituaries or to send a note to family and loved ones, please visit the link that follows.
Support Award-winning, Locally Focused Journalism
The FXBG Advance cuts through the talking points to deliver both incisive and informative news about the issues, people, and organizations that daily affect your life. And we do it in a multi-partisan format that has no equal in this region. Over the past year, our reporting was:
First to break the story of Stafford Board of Supervisors dismissing a citizen library board member for “misconduct,” without informing the citizen or explaining what the person allegedly did wrong.
First to explain falling water levels in the Rappahannock Canal.
First to detail controversial traffic numbers submitted by Stafford staff on the Buc-ee’s project
Our media group also offers the most-extensive election coverage in the region and regular columnists like:
And our newsroom is led by the most-experienced and most-awarded journalists in the region — Adele Uphaus (Managing Editor and multiple VPA award-winner) and Martin Davis (Editor-in-Chief, 2022 Opinion Writer of the Year in Virginia and more than 25 years reporting from around the country and the world).
For just $8 a month, you can help support top-flight journalism that puts people over policies.
Your contributions 100% support our journalists.
Help us as we continue to grow!
This article is published under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND. It can be distributed for noncommercial purposes and must include the following: “Published with permission by FXBG Advance.”
I find it telling that the only thing worthy of mention to you regarding the actions of the US President in his first week in office is what monetary effects they might have on the region.
While studiously ignoring things like revoking the Constitution if it does not suit him (14th Amendment, birthright citizenship) when less than a week earlier he had sworn an oath on a Bible to defend that very document,
clearly breaking the law by firing inspector generals without required notification of Congress or cause though he is the one most responsible for enforcing the laws,
arbitrary opening of investigations of perceived enemies, etc.
And the only thing that you do not protest, just merely wonder about; is who will get money around here and who won't?
You know, if you spend too much of your life looking down at your feet; one day you may find you've forgotten how to raise you head.....
It is also interesting to see those who move to a place like Virginia, clearly claim that they are better people because if they had been alive or in power back in the day; they would have never countenanced the evils of slavery or Jim Crow.
Who, as they tear down a statue, or change a road sign or rename camp - proudly use such arbitrary actions and statements to show what good people they are. Erasing the past while offering little to change the present or plan for the future.
Yet when faced with the injustices of their own times that are truly and clearly changing the bedrock principles of our country; meekly look the other way, or talk about anything else.
Salving their conscience that this is somehow different.
These are the injustices of our time. We may not have chosen them, but that does not mean they aren't here. These are battles we should fight.
If not us, who? If not now, when? If you will not stand for these things, what will you stand for? Pretending an injustice is only an injustice if it happens to you is not defense of principle. It's merely of self interest. Not realizing that those principles ARE in your self interest.
Whether you are doing it because you are a Christian, and you believe that whatever is done to the least of us is done to all of us, a patriot who believes that all are created equal (not just those in the 540), an economist, those who value honor, a realist, or whatever - there are those who believe that those principles ARE what made this country great.
We are out of balance. And we will remain so as long as good men and women decide it is better to do nothing. To say nothing. To demand nothing. Because it is safer. Easier, More profitable.
Human dignity, kindness, rule of law, knowledge, truth, civil liberties, fiscal responsibility, honor, honesty, openness, and all of the other virtues of this nation which are under attack and destruction from those who would presume they are saving us by ignoring or destroying them.
If you ever wondered how something like the Holocaust happened, wonder no more. You're living it.
It happens when everyday people decide it is safer to look the other way. Yet the millionth death was just as evil as the first.
Take the blinders off. This is our time. This is our fight. Whether we wish it or not.
We are out of balance. Hate and evil are having their day. It may pass, it may not.
But this isn't the first time it has happened, nor will it be the last. But again, it is our time.
Your son is risking his life to protect it from foreign enemies. What will you do to protect it here?
The choice is all of ours. Make it count. One day it may no longer be yours to make. And when you do make that choice, have courage and faith.
INVICTUS
Out of the night that covers me
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance,
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate
I am the captain of my soul
William Ernest Henley