I read with relief then deep disappointment that billions of dollars in federal grants and loans abruptly and illegally frozen by the Trump-Musk administration would now be released (“Appeals court won’t halt judge’s order requiring Trump administration to unfreeze all federal cash,” Feb. 11, TribLive). Why disappointment? Dismayingly, Pennsylvania’s recently elected Attorney General David Sunday declined to join the lawsuit brought by AGs from 22 other states against this unconstitutional withholding of federal grants and loans. Therefore, these rulings by a U.S. District Court judge and now a Circuit Court of Appeals do not apply to Pennsylvania.
Our universities, critical National Institutes of Health-funded medical research and our economy will continue to be kneecapped, and eventually we will all suffer. The research projects being scuttled could mean the difference between life and death for you or a loved one. Unemployment will rise and strangle our economy. Other nations will take the lead in research, and we will be hard-pressed to recover.
Had voters chosen Eugene DePasquale for attorney general, rest assured there would be 23 AGs on that lawsuit, and the money that Congress duly authorized would once again be coming to Pennsylvania’s institutions.
Elections have consequences.
Michele Feingold
Squirrel Hill