Transportation Committee Members React to Trump Cuts to Blue States

The fight between President Donald Trump and blue states has escalated over the government shutdown. 

In the past few weeks, the Trump administration has used the Democrats’ play to shut down the government against them by canceling or freezing federal dollars for various projects in Democrat-controlled areas, which frequently use taxpayer dollars for programs like DEI that run contrary to the president’s preexisting executive orders. According to a recent New York Times report, the president’s administration has paused or canceled almost $28 billion in blue congressional districts and states. 

The Daily Signal reached out to members of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure to get their views on the administration’s hardball tactics.

Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., explained to The Daily Signal how he viewed the Trump administration’s decisions. 

“Now, regarding this shutdown, the president has the unenviable task of making the selections of what gets funded and what doesn’t in these circumstances. And look, you know, this is a bipartisan vote [that] has happened to open the government, including Pennsylvania state’s Sen. [John] Fetterman [D-Pa.],” Perry said.

Perry voiced his support for the Trump administration’s decision to withhold $40 million in funding from California over its lax English language proficiency standards for truck drivers.

“[W]e are going to have something to say about that, because we don’t want people killed by people that shouldn’t be here (illegally) to support California’s whatever their program is. So if that’s what it takes to do that, I’m fully supportive of that,” Perry added. 

The announcement by the Department of Transportation regarding the withheld funding comes after an illegal alien allegedly killed three people after trying to perform an unlawful U-turn on the Florida Turnpike. The alien had been granted a driver’s license by California, but was able to, “correctly answer only two questions out of 12 given for English language proficiency by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration after the fatal accident.”

“[T]he president has to choose between things like WIC, the military, federal projects, including projects in [Chuck] Schumer’s state of New York,” Perry told The Daily Signal about the shutdown more broadly.

“The bottom line is right now, Democrats who voted for the CR in March now refuse to vote for it in October. The same exact CR, the same exact funding, actually their funding that they voted for in the Biden administration,” Perry concluded. 

Perry, a retired Army National Guard brigadier general, praised the Trump administration for its plans to repurpose about $8 billion of unused research funds to pay American troops during the shutdown.

“It does impress me that the president obviously has the same priorities as the vast majority of American citizens,” Perry noted, adding, “American citizens know that people in uniformed services put their lives on the line and are on duty ready for the battle at a moment’s notice, some in harm’s way as we speak, and most Americans think that they should be paid for that.”

Perry is familiar with the reality of war having flown 44 combat missions.

“[I]f [the Democrats] want to rationalize not paying the military, not paying federal law enforcement, not paying for women and infant children, not paying SNAP benefits, they can take that up with their constituents, their bosses,” Perry said.

“Republicans have done their job to fund the government. Despite the shutdown, the Trump administration has gone out of its way to protect services for WIC and our soldiers, which is in total contrast to Obama, who tried to create maximum pain,” Rep. Jimmy Patronis, R-Fla., told The Daily Signal.

“Republicans continue to support reopening the government while Chuck Schumer and the Democrats have voted 11 times to keep it closed, thereby handing the keys over to the Trump administration who is now empowered to make prudent decisions in compliance with the shutdown,” the Florida congressman, who previously served as the chief financial officer of Florida, declared.

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