If it's defense related, many (but not all) of those full or partial scholarships have been frozen, or at least in my sister in law's case, her loan forgiveness.
If it's national science foundation, and not DoE or DoD related, you can get scholarship and loan forgiveness in many cases. I was HR for DoD and in during the second big round of cuts (under Clinton) I had to console those who lost retirement or scholarship possibilities. First round of cuts was under George H.W. Bush with then Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney in charge, and third major round is Obama. It's not a political party thing, it's just economics.
If you have questions about whether they can reneg on agreement, PM me. The SMART program, as of this time so far, will pay some of all of master's and/or PhD. To defend government or lack of government promises, nobody with any conscience will flat out lie to you from what I have seen, but they may not know what the flavor of the week budget and cuts are so always keep up on it.
On the face of it, it's better to take a job which may or may not pay for PhD vs. most jobs which won't pay a dime towards it. We are in a severe financial crisis so any scholarship, no matter how small, is an amazing thing.