President Donald Trump didn’t need to sow concern about whether federal dollars would continue to flow to communities across the nation, including in Northeastern Oregon.

A Jan. 27 memo from the Office of Management and Budget stated that some federal spending would be halted while agencies reviewed their programs to ensure they complied with certain of Trump’s executive orders. These include Trump’s effort to end “radical and wasteful government DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) programs and preferencing” and to protect “women from gender ideology extremism,” according to the memo.

Agencies were supposed to respond to the memo by Feb. 10.

But on Jan. 28, with people nationwide worried about interruptions in a wide variety of projects, including the Pendleton Children’s Center’s plan to buy a building to expand its child care capacity, groups sued the administration challenging the order.

A federal judge temporarily blocked the order that day.

On Jan. 29 the administration withdrew the memo. However, White House officials said the goal of cutting programs that run afoul of Trump’s priorities would continue.

Last week’s debacle was vague and sudden.

Although Trump officials reacted to the widespread concerns by emphasizing that major government aid programs, such as Social Security, Medicare, food stamps and welfare payments, wouldn’t be affected, this reassurance was belated and incomplete.

America’s staggering $37 trillion debt is truly a bipartisan accomplishment.

We have run up that tab over several decades while Republicans controlled Congress, while Democrats had majorities and when the two parties shared control of public purse strings.

Trump’s effort to trim that immense sum is eminently reasonable.

But tying the campaign so closely to ideological issues such as DEI isn’t likely to be the most efficient strategy.

Moreover, the strategy raises constitutional questions. The Constitution gives Congress, not the executive branch, control over public spending.

The administration should continue its effort to find, publicize and then eliminate, if possible, indefensible spending.

In that order.

But vague threats of nationwide spending freezes, such as last week’s, accomplish little except to provoke fear.

Some of the predictions of social upheaval, the implication being the average American can’t manage without regular financial help from the federal government, were hyperbolic to be sure.

But the Trump administration was ultimately responsible. It was a mistake the White House should not repeat.