Donald Trump, his shadow president Elon Musk, and the so-called Department of Government Efficiency are waging a highly illegal rampage through the federal budget. Among the first wave of intended victims are thousands of scientists across the country who depend on federal grants and loans to fuel their research. The administration is trying to unilaterally slash billions of dollars from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF). To defend this, Musk claims it's a "ripoff" when grant funding goes to pay for salaries, lab space and equipment, even though no one can conduct scientific research without these baseline necessities.
"Trump and King Musk framed this as a shot at baddies like Harvard and Yale, but this absolutely destroys public schools and every state has those and they all are doing scientific research," historian Erik Loomis explained at Lawyers, Guns and Money. Even Republican senators are having trouble concealing their panic, as public universities are economic centers in many red states.
