* Subscribers were told about this earlier today…

The Trump administration says it is freezing $10 billion in funds for child care and poor families in five blue states, the Office of Management and Budget confirmed to Axios Monday.

Why it matters: The White House is pointing to reports of social services fraud in Minnesota to threaten funding for child care around the country.

• Child care providers are bracing for a slowdown in funds and the possibility of cuts that threaten their ability to operate. That could create wider issues, as millions of parents rely on child care to get to their jobs.

Where it stands: Funds are being suspended for California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota and New York, according to the New York Post, which earlier reported the news.

• The hold on funds is due to fraud and giving money to undocumented immigrants, per an OMB official.
• The official shared links to reports of fraud in a few of these states from the past few years, many of which have already been prosecuted or charged.

* From the New York Post story…

The Department of Health and Human Services will freeze taxpayer funding from the Child Care Development Fund (CCDF), the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, and the Social Services Block Grant program.

At least $7.35 billion in TANF money will be prevented from going to California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, and New York.

The CCDF funding block of nearly $2.4 billion affects all those states.

Another $869 million from the Social Services Block Grant coffers is being kept from all five states as well.

The funding pauses were to be announced via letters to each state sent Monday, citing concerns that benefits were fraudulently going to non-US citizens.

So far, no states have said they’re received the letter, including Illinois as of about 12:30 this afternoon.

* From IDHS…

IDHS has not received any official communication or notification on impacts to federal funding. This is yet another politically-motivated action by the Trump Administration that confuses families and leaves states with more questions than answers. IDHS will provide an update if it is made aware of program or funding changes.

* Meanwhile, Republican gubernatorial candidate Ted Dabrowski held a press conference today to discuss human services funding. From his opening remarks…

I called this press conference today in light of what’s happening in Minnesota and the massive fraud we’re seeing there in many of their health and human services programs.

* And then he said he’s not saying, he’s just saying…

I’m not making an accusation today of fraud in Illinois. I’m not doing that. What I am saying is, if you look at the numbers, and you see the massive growth in child care services, in home services, and you see that kind of growth like that, it starts to look like numbers, or I should say, for the potential for fraud and mismanagement, and it certainly is crazy spending when you look at the levels.

* But even if there is no fraud, Dabrowski said spending on child care and services for people with severe disabilities is far too high…

These numbers should not be elevated like this. So and then, when you take all human services spending, including state and federal, down at the bottom line, it’s up 11 billion. It’s doubled.

As subscribers were already reminded, Dabrowski lamented the lack of spending on social services ten years ago in an Illinois Policy Institute op-ed during the Rauner administration.

* More…

I’d like to see a forensic audit from the Governor, from the Illinois government.

Click here for more on the magical forensic audits.

* However, I don’t think this is at all unreasonable…

So all I’m saying is that Governor Pritzker, with this kind of stuff with Minnesota happening, he owes Illinois a proper report on this.

Wouldn’t hurt. The legislature can ask the Illinois Auditor General to perform an audit. Governors can’t order those on their own, but Pritzker could encourage it.

* Dabrowski also seemed to contradict himself…

I’ve been looking at Illinois’ budget for the last 15 years. I began in 2009 and that’s at the time when we started to see all the downgrades we saw over over the next few years, 13 downgrades under Governor Quinn. We saw eight downgrades under Governor Rauner. Then we saw another one under Governor Pritzker. And all that time, we kept, kept hearing that we’re having balanced budgets in Illinois, that everything’s fine, everything’s good. And it was never true. It was never true. And we finally got to the point where Illinois was one notch away from a junk bond rating. And Fitch actually warned that Illinois may become junk rated. It would become the first state ever to get a junk rating.

But then Dabrowski said that bond ratings don’t matter to ordinary people…

Illinois was able to do some stuff like pay down bills and all that with all that free money, free money. Then, of course, the upgrades came. But remember, New York got upgraded. Connecticut got it. Everybody got upgraded because suddenly the states were flush with cash.

Now, remember, who does the the credit rating protect? Protects bond holders, has nothing to do with with everyday Joe Blow on the street. He’s not protected. Just because there’s more money at the state level where bondholders can’t get bailed out, doesn’t mean that the everyday Illinoisan is any better off.

If I get this right, he’s saying using one-time money to pay down bills is somehow bad because it takes away from ongoing state spending to help “Joe Blow,” but also, spending state and federal money on families and some of the most vulnerable people in Illinois has skyrocketed during that same period of time.

In that above-mentioned 2016 op-ed, he said social spending should be higher, but pension payments were too high. He wasn’t wrong, but pension payments have since stabilized as a percentage of the budget. And now the state can fund other things.