Item 1:
More than 1 million people count on Houston-area food pantries, which are staring down empty shelves after losing $11 million in federal funding.
Until recently, 100 tractor-trailers full of federally-funded food pulled up each month to the Houston Food Bank’s headquarters just east of downtown. Now, it’s down 60.
“It’s been a lot like navigating a disaster,” Houston Bank CEO Brian Greene said. “The information is incoming and you have to make decisions, and then more information comes along and you pivot.”
In total, the Trump administration cut 15% of the Houston Food Bank’s budget, said Greene. Breaking it down, that’s a loss of $7 million to buy food from local farmers, $3 million to distribute goods to 1,600 pantries and $1 million to help seniors and low-income families apply for health insurance.
The food bank will keep distributing to pantries, but they’ll have fewer choices, Greene said. And more than 200 seniors won’t get their monthly food boxes to help keep their shelves full.
In the meantime, the food bank is struggling to figure out how to make up the money and food it is losing. Maybe it will be forced to cut staff. Maybe private donors or foundations will step up. Maybe grocery stores and farmers will donate too-small onions or imperfect carrots or whatever else usually hits the trash.
A lot of maybes means a lot of uncertainty.
“We’ll take our shot,” Greene said, turning to the annual impact of the cuts. “But there’s no way we can make up 20 million pounds (per year). My goodness.”
Food banks across the country are battling the same problems.
Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins explained the cuts to USDA programs that help food banks and schools as a “once in a generation opportunity to save our country from fiscal ruin.”
“President Trump’s budget will put us on the path to reducing our deficit and lowering the national debt,” Rollins said in a news release. “At USDA we have already started by eliminating wasteful spending, reprioritizing our services to put farmers first, and cutting red tape.”
But to local food pantries that rely on the Houston Food Bank for supplies, the funding is far from “wasteful spending” – it’s the basis of their ability to feed people.
See here for some background. It’s difficult to adequately convey how monstrous and sociopathic Brooke Rollins’ statement is. Not surprising, given her background, but thoroughly depraved. I’m willing to bet that a poll that asked people to prioritize between ensuring that food banks, which serve an awful lot of children, are adequately supplied or that the “national debt” is serviced by cutting funding for food banks, the former would draw support in the 80% range. Among the things we can do are to remind people of this stuff.
Item 2:
President Donald Trump [has] released a budget request that would slash NASA funding by nearly 25% and result in the end of Houston-area programs.
The 2026 budget request would allocate roughly $18.8 billion to NASA, down from $24.9 billion in fiscal year 2024. The 2026 budget would make deep cuts in science programs and prioritize sending humans to the moon and Mars, a key priority for Trump and SpaceX founder Elon Musk. Congress passed a full-year continuing resolution in March that did not give NASA a 2025 budget, so it’s operating at 2024 levels.
The focus on human spaceflight at the NASA Johnson Space Center is not likely to insulate workers from these cuts, said Casey Dreier, chief of space policy for the Planetary Society, a space advocacy group based in Pasadena, Calif.
“Houston has to worry,” Dreier said. “This budget … it’s indicative of a shift away from NASA-implemented spaceflight systems, particularly for human spaceflight.”
The International Space Station, with its operations and missions led by teams in Houston, would have its funding cut by $500 million, roughly a third of its estimated operating budget. The number of astronauts living on the station and the amount of research conducted would be reduced.
The Orion spacecraft intended to return humans to the moon and the Gateway space station that would orbit the moon, both led out of Houston, are on the chopping block. Orion would end after Artemis III, the NASA mission working to return humans to the moon, as the agency shifts to a private company’s spacecraft. Gateway would be terminated before its launch.
The budget request also detailed a $1.1 billion drop in “mission support,” which it said would entail streamlining the workforce, NASA center operations, facility maintenance, etc. Dreier said this aligns with the agency’s reduction in force plan that’s being worked on. A $1.1 billion drop could portend a 25% to 30% drop in NASA’s nationwide workforce, he said.
NASA accounts for roughly 20,000 jobs in Texas. Nearly 3,000 full-time-equivalent federal employees worked at the Johnson Space Center in fiscal year 2023, the most recent data available. Another 17,359 contractor jobs were tied to NASA in Texas.
Brian Freedman, president of the Bay Area Houston Economic Partnership, said he’s very concerned about local job losses with the International Space Station and Orion programs, which are among the Johnson Space Center’s larger programs.
But he also said Houston might be able to attract some of the budget request’s $1 billion in new funding for a Mars-focused program. The economic partnership is working with the area’s Congressional leaders and will bring a group of Houstonians to Washington later this month to discuss the importance of human spaceflight.
“There may be other opportunities down the line for human spaceflight projects aligned with where the administration and Congress want to go,” Freedman said, “and we certainly have the skills here.”
U.S. Rep. Brian Babin, a Woodville Republican who chairs the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, emphasized the importance of NASA beating China to the moon.
“This proposal marks the beginning of the budget process — not a final decision,” Babin said in a statement. “President Trump and I share a clear goal: securing America’s position as the world’s preeminent spacefaring nation. As I review the president’s budget proposal, I will work to ensure it reflects that commitment. I remain dedicated to staying the course, honoring our national space priorities, and supporting Johnson Space Center and the vital programs it oversees.”
Dreier said the proposed cuts would be the largest in NASA’s history. They come as Trump, with the enthusiastic support of Musk, who contributed at least $250 million to Trump’s campaign and leads the Department of Government Efficiency, seeks to shrink the federal government. Both Trump and Musk have expressed an interest in sending humans to Mars.
And although the budget allocates more money for crewed missions to the moon and Mars, Dreier said the overall cuts are not realistic for getting humans to the Red Planet.
“This is not a budget commensurate with American leadership in space,” Dreier said. “This is a budget commensurate with American retreat from space.”
Hey, Senators Cornyn and Cruz, it’s nice that you want to relocate the space shuttle Discovery to Houston and all. But are you going to represent your human constituents and work to save their jobs? Or are all these job cuts, which are more likely to hurt the stated goal of putting humans on Mars than to help it, fine by you? Don’t expect any help from Rep. Babin, who is an utter moron. What are you going to do about this?
Item 3:
“Chaos.” “Nonsense.” “Absolutely terrible.”
In public, at least, many business leaders have been somewhat circumspect since President Donald Trump announced sweeping worldwide tariffs on April 2, or as he called it, “Liberation Day.” But Texas executives were a bit more candid in a series of recent surveys conducted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, which invited them to comment on the tariffs anonymously.
“A lack of a plan and the arbitrary nature of the tariffs are killing business,” said one manufacturing executive in computer and electronic product manufacturing.
The Dallas Fed surveys hundreds of executives in the manufacturing, service and retail sectors each month about business conditions, inviting them to elaborate with anonymous comments. Last month’s surveys, conducted April 15–23, included a series of special questions on the impact of Trump’s tariffs.
Nearly 60% of the roughly 350 respondents from across the state said they expected higher tariffs to have a negative impact on their businesses this year; only 3.2% were expecting a positive impact. About 55% of those expecting a negative impact said they plan to pass at least some portion of the cost increases through to their customers.
At the time of the most recent survey, Trump had announced a pause on many of the tariffs he had just proposed, after the “Liberation Day” proposals sent markets reeling and raised concerns about the potential for inflation and recession. But Trump was planning to proceed with tariffs on major trading partners including China, which was among the countries responding with retaliatory tariffs.
“I cannot emphasize enough how absolutely terrible this is in the short term,” said another. “The daily changes in policy make it impossible to attract new business currently because we cannot quote it with accuracy.”
An executive in professional services described the situation as “a self-inflicted pandemic all over again.”
“The chaotic implementation of the administration’s tariff policy and the near-daily changes are wreaking havoc on our business, our customer’s business and our suppliers,” the respondent said.
Hey guys. I know you don’t like the absolutely terrible chaotic nonsense right now, even though most if not all of you probably voted for it. I’m sorry that it’s hurting your businesses and your personal bottom lines in ways that no one at all could have predicted or warned you about. Do you think that maybe you could say some of this stuff again next year, when people are beginning to think about the next election and how they might vote in it? No rush, take your time and think about it. I know how hard the whole “thinking ahead to the future” thing is for you. I’ll check back with you later.
