Grant delays sensible

The Jan. 26 Spokesman-Review contained four stories under the heading, “How will Trump’s policies affect us?” Two stories dealt primarily with receiving grant money. All four stories were speculative and came to the same conclusions (paraphrasing): “We don’t know yet. Things are on hold.”

Well golly. When the articles were written, President Trump had been in office for only three or four days and approval of most Cabinet members was being delayed by the Democrats.

New grant money should be delayed until the Cabinet members are in place and adequate review and control of grants can be established. In 2015, $617 billion federal tax dollars were awarded as grants by federal agencies. A recent document from U.S. Sen. James Lankford identified over 5 billion dollars in annual government waste.

Among my favorite grants: $200,000 to study 500-year-old fish bones in a Tasmanian city to determine the connection between food and social status; $412,000 for a research paper arguing that glaciers are best studied using feminist theories; $500,000 to find a connection between religion and politics in a 12th century Icelandic cemetery.

Art and Humanities funding is important, but we must be more diligent to spend it wisely.

Gerald Click

Spokane