Rush to Grab Power Before the November Elections

One name: Russell Vought. 

He wants to put himself (or people he controls) in charge of deciding how all the U.S. government's grant money — our taxpayer money — is spent. All of it: not just scientific grants. Yes, really.

Here are a couple of pieces about this proposed rule change, which is clearly illegal, but that means nothing these days: 

• A brief bit on Science Friday from today. 
• A story in The Nation, which should be accessible if you sign up for a free account. 
• And this thread on BlueSky by the author of The Nation story, epidemiologist Gregg Gonsalves.

I'm going to quote Gonsalves's thread in full, because it's in keeping with why he wrote the thread:

Russell Vought is an evil man. This plan is nothing short of a personal take-over of federal grant-making. It will affect ALL of us. Political commissars will now be in charge of all agencies, reporting to him. But we are not powerless. See what you can do below.

First, write a letter to Congress. Personalize it. Get your friends and family to do the same. Will take 2–3 minutes of your time. 

Next write a comment on the proposed rule BEFORE July 13th. If you're not a scientist, this post explains what's at stake for your community here [and has great instructions and the comment link at the end].

If you are a scientist, this post has a primer for that too! 

This piece on Forbes also has a great piece about how the rule will affect your community.

And people need to know about this new proposed OMB rule. Consider writing an op-ed for your local paper.

This is it folks. All hands on deck. We need everyone now working to stop this. Please, please spread the word. Get five, better yet ten friends to take action.  

As the non-scientist explainer linked above put it,

Federal grants are not peripheral to how states and communities function. They represent, on average, 36 cents of every dollar a state spends. This rule puts that entire financial partnership between the federal government and the states under political control, without an act of Congress, effective October 1, 2026.

Vought's minions will be able to terminate any granted program at any time for any or no reason. New programs, of course, will have to align with Trump's ideology. Of course, all of the usual "anti-woke" words are used in the rule-making, so it's pretty clear what will not be funded.

The availability of grants will not be open and public, so — surprise! — this is an additional opportunity for graft. There will be no appeal process when applications are denied, and "organizational affiliation" can be used as the basis for denial. 

As usual, I find myself outraged that we need to write specifically formatted comments explaining to our government why it should not be trying to kill its people and destroy the infrastructure our tax dollars have been spent on for decades. But that's where we're at under the Trump regime as they rush to grab power before the November elections.

Write comments, write to Congress, write everywhere.