NIH Funding

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Capping administrative costs seems logical. Administrative costs of 60% seems ridiculous and in line with the unnecessary administrative bloat we see everywhere. FWIW: the government says a 15% cap is in line with what research institutions get from private foundations but I have no knowledge if that’s correct or not.
 
The universities use the indirect costs to pay for many things (buildings, employment, etc). Likely, will have to cut all around to account for the revenue loss.
 
Porfirio said:
The universities use the indirect costs to pay for many things (buildings, employment, etc). Likely, will have to cut all around to account for the revenue loss.
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Endowments? I mean honestly, it’s a bit absurd. I went to a school thats top 10 in NIH money.. top 10 endowment.

I didnt go to Harvard but i read that a 1% return on their endowment could cover tuition for every student there and thats before the last 2 years of stock market returns. I have 0 empathy when these schools are charging undergrads 70k+ in tuition and they want to cry poor.. Nah fam.. nah..
 

Rankings | Colleges with the largest endowment - Most endowment money

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According to that site 128 universities have $1b or more. The big research guys have plenty of money.. Don’t give me the nonsense about cutting tuition or any nonsense. Their endowments have boomed at the same time tuition and student debt has as well. 0 empathy over here.
 
This conversation and people's reaction to it have focused on large well-funded universities with big endowments. There's two main problems with that:
1) Indirect costs and endowments have nothing to do with each other. Most funding sources do not allow indirect costs to go to endowments, including the NIH. Rich institutions largely got so by ruthlessly controlling expenses. It's hard to imagine that they'll react to this by opening up the capital in their endowments to fund research out of sheer generosity.

2) This isn't "saving" $4b/year, this is cutting research funding for health by $4b/year. As mentioned in point 1, Harvard is going to be just fine. It will spend less on research.. But it's still going to be Harvard. Big dog researchers are going to be fine, they'll pivot to industry funding and they'll make sure that they keep as much of the smaller pie for themselves as possible (since they sit on the review boards and determine where the reduced funding gets allocated). This is potentially catastrophic for mid-tier institutions that have thinner margins. It will be devastating for the early career researchers that could have found the next big breakthrough but can't get funding because nobody is willing to risk in an environment of scarcity.

Also, indirect costs are basically economic stimuli for research. We pay farmers to grow crops we don't need so we don't have famines when conditions change. They use that money to buy seed, repair or replace their equipment, pay their workers, etc. It's money that goes directly into the economy. And we seem broadly fine that a lot of that money ends up flowing to ADM or Bunge rather than to struggling family farms because not starving is widely considered a national priority. Indirect costs for research are pretty similar. They're going to pay the power company for electricity, the administrative staff (who are not wealthy and put most of what they get paid back into the economy), maintenance (both the workers and the companies that make the parts and equipment), the construction workers and companies that put up the new lab building, etc. It's money that goes directly into the (mostly local) economy.

Nobody's asking you to feel bad for Harvard or Johns Hopkins, but cheering this on as anything other than deprioritizing health research is a dangerous mistake. This is the playbook for how America gets looted and sold off for parts. Slash government support, have a PR blitz to highlight the top echelon of the sector's wealth, then ignore the fact that anything under that tier is going to be crippled. Let the insanely wealthy private companies in the sector buy up the remnants at fire sale prices, then sit on the assets or gatekeep what used to be a public good behind an unaffordable paywall.
 
Arcan57 said:
This conversation and people's reaction to it have focused on large well-funded universities with big endowments. There's two main problems with that:
1) Indirect costs and endowments have nothing to do with each other. Most funding sources do not allow indirect costs to go to endowments, including the NIH. Rich institutions largely got so by ruthlessly controlling expenses. It's hard to imagine that they'll react to this by opening up the capital in their endowments to fund research out of sheer generosity.

2) This isn't "saving" $4b/year, this is cutting research funding for health by $4b/year. As mentioned in point 1, Harvard is going to be just fine. It will spend less on research.. But it's still going to be Harvard. Big dog researchers are going to be fine, they'll pivot to industry funding and they'll make sure that they keep as much of the smaller pie for themselves as possible (since they sit on the review boards and determine where the reduced funding gets allocated). This is potentially catastrophic for mid-tier institutions that have thinner margins. It will be devastating for the early career researchers that could have found the next big breakthrough but can't get funding because nobody is willing to risk in an environment of scarcity.

Also, indirect costs are basically economic stimuli for research. We pay farmers to grow crops we don't need so we don't have famines when conditions change. They use that money to buy seed, repair or replace their equipment, pay their workers, etc. It's money that goes directly into the economy. And we seem broadly fine that a lot of that money ends up flowing to ADM or Bunge rather than to struggling family farms because not starving is widely considered a national priority. Indirect costs for research are pretty similar. They're going to pay the power company for electricity, the administrative staff (who are not wealthy and put most of what they get paid back into the economy), maintenance (both the workers and the companies that make the parts and equipment), the construction workers and companies that put up the new lab building, etc. It's money that goes directly into the (mostly local) economy.

Nobody's asking you to feel bad for Harvard or Johns Hopkins, but cheering this on as anything other than deprioritizing health research is a dangerous mistake. This is the playbook for how America gets looted and sold off for parts. Slash government support, have a PR blitz to highlight the top echelon of the sector's wealth, then ignore the fact that anything under that tier is going to be crippled. Let the insanely wealthy private companies in the sector buy up the remnants at fire sale prices, then sit on the assets or gatekeep what used to be a public good behind an unaffordable paywall.
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I’ve still yet to see a compelling reason why administrative costs need to take up 60% of the money. The argument that the money goes back into the local economy doesn’t seem to hold water because there’s other ways that money would go back into the local economy, namely lower taxes and more money in the pocket of the taxpayer with less waste.
 
The cuts are targeted to administrators and core research is protected. Cash reserves of a few “research” institutions:

Harvard: $53,000,000,000

Yale $41,000,000,000

John’s Hopkins $13,000,000,000


Must suck to be an administrator and only have $53,000,000,000 to fall back on.

Source
 
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JacobMcCandles said:
I’ve still yet to see a compelling reason why administrative costs need to take up 60% of the money. The argument that the money goes back into the local economy doesn’t seem to hold water because there’s other ways that money would go back into the local economy, namely lower taxes and more money in the pocket of the taxpayer with less waste.
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Lower taxes seem to be targeted towards groups that put a significantly smaller percentage of their wealth back into the economy than the working class/white collar jobs that are primarily funded by indirects. Government funding supporting positions like these are one of the few things that stand in the way of the wealthiest 0.01% from being able to funnel all the wealth to themselves. Hence why everything is targeted towards dismantling the fed.
 
Arcan57 said:
Lower taxes seem to be targeted towards groups that put a significantly smaller percentage of their wealth back into the economy than the working class/white collar jobs that are primarily funded by indirects. Government funding supporting positions like these are one of the few things that stand in the way of the wealthiest 0.01% from being able to funnel all the wealth to themselves. Hence why everything is targeted towards dismantling the fed.
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I guess I’d disagree that government wasteful spending is what is standing in the way of the wealthiest 0.01% funneling all the wealth to themselves.

Anyway, why should indirect costs make up a larger percentage of spending for something than direct costs? It makes no sense at all. As more and more of this is uncovered I’d wager that this wasteful spending (not just this but in a broader sense) is enriching the wealthiest 0.01% far more than your scenario.
 
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The crazy thing about all of this is much of the research we are talking about is drug discovery / basic science research. How is it that our drug costs are insane.

To say the NIH funding has nothing to do with endowments is a choice.I am aware that the endowments cant be spent however administrators want. That being said it is designed that way to enjoy as much of the govt milk as possible. A convenient fake delineation. Those indirect costs are a huge scam. Keeping it to 15% is plenty especially when the universities can profit from the research they put forth.

My impression having trained at an academic center is if you want to buy down your clinical hours they want you to bring in 3x your hourly rate to buy down an hour. It is insanity and honestly these mid tier academic institutions need to tighten up a little. We have $30T in debt.. Perhaps it is time to put down the free money and have some fiscal responsibility.
 
EctopicFetus said:
The crazy thing about all of this is much of the research we are talking about is drug discovery / basic science research. How is it that our drug costs are insane.

To say the NIH funding has nothing to do with endowments is a choice.I am aware that the endowments cant be spent however administrators want. That being said it is designed that way to enjoy as much of the govt milk as possible. A convenient fake delineation. Those indirect costs are a huge scam. Keeping it to 15% is plenty especially when the universities can profit from the research they put forth.

My impression having trained at an academic center is if you want to buy down your clinical hours they want you to bring in 3x your hourly rate to buy down an hour. It is insanity and honestly these mid tier academic institutions need to tighten up a little. We have $30T in debt.. Perhaps it is time to put down the free money and have some fiscal responsibility.
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Arcan57 said:
This conversation and people's reaction to it have focused on large well-funded universities with big endowments. There's two main problems with that:
1) Indirect costs and endowments have nothing to do with each other. Most funding sources do not allow indirect costs to go to endowments, including the NIH. Rich institutions largely got so by ruthlessly controlling expenses. It's hard to imagine that they'll react to this by opening up the capital in their endowments to fund research out of sheer generosity.

2) This isn't "saving" $4b/year, this is cutting research funding for health by $4b/year. As mentioned in point 1, Harvard is going to be just fine. It will spend less on research.. But it's still going to be Harvard. Big dog researchers are going to be fine, they'll pivot to industry funding and they'll make sure that they keep as much of the smaller pie for themselves as possible (since they sit on the review boards and determine where the reduced funding gets allocated). This is potentially catastrophic for mid-tier institutions that have thinner margins. It will be devastating for the early career researchers that could have found the next big breakthrough but can't get funding because nobody is willing to risk in an environment of scarcity.

Also, indirect costs are basically economic stimuli for research. We pay farmers to grow crops we don't need so we don't have famines when conditions change. They use that money to buy seed, repair or replace their equipment, pay their workers, etc. It's money that goes directly into the economy. And we seem broadly fine that a lot of that money ends up flowing to ADM or Bunge rather than to struggling family farms because not starving is widely considered a national priority. Indirect costs for research are pretty similar. They're going to pay the power company for electricity, the administrative staff (who are not wealthy and put most of what they get paid back into the economy), maintenance (both the workers and the companies that make the parts and equipment), the construction workers and companies that put up the new lab building, etc. It's money that goes directly into the (mostly local) economy.

Nobody's asking you to feel bad for Harvard or Johns Hopkins, but cheering this on as anything other than deprioritizing health research is a dangerous mistake. This is the playbook for how America gets looted and sold off for parts. Slash government support, have a PR blitz to highlight the top echelon of the sector's wealth, then ignore the fact that anything under that tier is going to be crippled. Let the insanely wealthy private companies in the sector buy up the remnants at fire sale prices, then sit on the assets or gatekeep what used to be a public good behind an unaffordable paywall.
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The crazy thing is when private industry sees a need they spend their money. Have you seen the CapEx of Big tech? Meta, google etc are all about to spend $50B a year to dive into AI. I get its a bit of apples and oranges.. that being said the complete lack of respect for the US taxpayer is what is coming to roost with DOGE. This is just one example.. 99.9% of people will feel nothing from this.. its a lot of money. Are we spending it in a manner that makes sense? The issue is the govt and industry are tied to one another in a manner that seems incestuous.
 
From what I've read the private grants (Bill Gates foundation, etc) are anywhere from 10-15% of indirect costs. I'm not sure why government should pay more than that. Also it was stated that it would free up that $4 billion for additional research grants, not necessarily a cut.

That being said, with $1.9 trillion deficit, there have to be massive cuts everywhere. Everyone will have an excuse as to why his/her pet project or spending can't be cut which is why we've not been able to get control of spending in the past.
 
EctopicFetus said:
The crazy thing about all of this is much of the research we are talking about is drug discovery / basic science research. How is it that our drug costs are insane.

To say the NIH funding has nothing to do with endowments is a choice.I am aware that the endowments cant be spent however administrators want. That being said it is designed that way to enjoy as much of the govt milk as possible. A convenient fake delineation. Those indirect costs are a huge scam. Keeping it to 15% is plenty especially when the universities can profit from the research they put forth.

My impression having trained at an academic center is if you want to buy down your clinical hours they want you to bring in 3x your hourly rate to buy down an hour. It is insanity and honestly these mid tier academic institutions need to tighten up a little. We have $30T in debt.. Perhaps it is time to put down the free money and have some fiscal responsibility.
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My point stands about picking the extreme cases (how many articles have you seen about this that don't mention Harvard?) and using it to generate enough antipathy/apathy that nobody notices that important and essential things have just been eliminated.

Mid-tier academic institutions are already pretty damn tight. What you're talking about is pushing the admin/compliance/secreterial tasks currently being done onto the PIs themselves. Ideally, we want the science people doing science. Same way that we accept that putting an army into the field depends on a lot more than just the paying the people shooting at the enemy. This is about crippling academia because it's viewed as the enemy and the source of resistance. It says something about America if making it great again involves slashing it's investment in our future.

Finally, everyone that somehow believes that this leads to a fiscally secure America with a significantly reduced national debt is just not paying attention. Do you think anyone making decisions in the executive branch cares at all about the national debt other than as an excuse to wreck the economy and sell off public assets? Look at who's in charge, it's not paragons of fiscal conservatism. They don't care about debt, they know they're never going to have to pay it.
 
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Arcan57 said:
Finally, everyone that somehow believes that this leads to a fiscally secure America with a significantly reduced national debt is just not paying attention. Do you think anyone making decisions in the executive branch cares at all about the national debt other than as an excuse to wreck the economy and sell off public assets? Look at who's in charge, it's not paragons of fiscal conservatism. They don't care about debt, they know they're never going to have to pay it.
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Anything is better than what we've had for the last four years. Any attempt at transparency to show Americans where their money is going is welcome. You can impugn their motives, but we've received more insight into how these organizations operate than ever before. Especially interesting will be the treasury payments scandal if it turns out to be factual....
 
ScepticSkeksis said:
Anything is better than what we've had for the last four years. Any attempt at transparency to show Americans where their money is going is welcome. You can impugn their motives, but we've received more insight into how these organizations operate than ever before. Especially interesting will be the treasury payments scandal if it turns out to be factual....
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I find it confusing that you trust Elon musk, who has multiple conflicts of interest, to be truthful about his goals or findings from the treasury department.

You trust president trump to be truthful? That’s incomprehensible to me given his record, but if you do, I don’t understand why you think “the last 4 years” was so different from the four preceding it.

He was president from 2016-2020. He had access to literally all of the information that’s being handled now. He could have published all of it in the newspaper if he cared to.

I also think it’s absurd to talk about further tax cuts while moaning about the deficit, unless you have targeted cuts in mind to make up the lost revenue and more.

We have trillions in debt. I don’t think that the nih is where I want to recoup the losses, especially when its budget is <1% of that, and not even 1% of the deficit.

If there are Medicare cuts, and Medicaid cuts, do we think “administrators” are going to feel the pain? Or is it just going to be passed along to us, especially outside sdgs.

Same thing is happening for the phds, they’re going to get the shaft and the administrators will be fine.

No matter what you believe, this isn’t how the government is supposed to function. Unpredictable spending cuts based on ideological lines is going to cause huge whiplash every time there’s an election. it should be driven by Congress, not the executive, and it should be planned and telegraphed to allow appropriate planning and minimize job loss.

Having said all that, I also think this thread has rapidly and predictably moved on from its initial discussion and is basically just another politics thread.
 
throway134 said:
I find it confusing that you trust Elon musk, who has multiple conflicts of interest, to be truthful about his goals or findings from the treasury department.

You trust president trump to be truthful? That’s incomprehensible to me given his record, but if you do, I don’t understand why you think “the last 4 years” was so different from the four preceding it.

He was president from 2016-2020. He had access to literally all of the information that’s being handled now. He could have published all of it in the newspaper if he cared to.

I also think it’s absurd to talk about further tax cuts while moaning about the deficit, unless you have targeted cuts in mind to make up the lost revenue and more.

We have trillions in debt. I don’t think that the nih is where I want to recoup the losses, especially when its budget is <1% of that, and not even 1% of the deficit.

If there are Medicare cuts, and Medicaid cuts, do we think “administrators” are going to feel the pain? Or is it just going to be passed along to us, especially outside sdgs.

Same thing is happening for the phds, they’re going to get the shaft and the administrators will be fine.

No matter what you believe, this isn’t how the government is supposed to function. Unpredictable spending cuts based on ideological lines is going to cause huge whiplash every time there’s an election. it should be driven by Congress, not the executive, and it should be planned and telegraphed to allow appropriate planning and minimize job loss.

Having said all that, I also think this thread has rapidly and predictably moved on from its initial discussion and is basically just another politics thread.
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You are totally right about trusting trump. And yes he was president but lets be very honest here. The president has access to all sorts of things (basically everything) but they cant focus on everything. Thats what is different here. Their focus is on slashing government. I am honestly unsure what Biden focused his energy on. Elon is brash and certainly on the spectrum and his access to X and being unafraid of calling out the waste is what is different.

I was discussing this with friends and the approval for trump is the highest it has ever been for him. Publishing in the newspaper is too slow and lacks the eyeballs that an online platform gets.

Re the tax cuts recent data shows all time tax revenue even with lower rates.

Re the NIH being a tiny proportion I agree. I also think the point is they are looking everywhere. The size of our government means it is rife to have waste. Looking at my personal budget.. when I was a broke college and med student I had very little to no waste. Couldnt afford it.. Now everytime I have the time I see weird stuff on my credit card waste in spending, waste is everywhere. Not huge numbers but it is there.. used to never be there. Budget grew and so did waste. I will go through it and clean things up eventually. Heck, just recently I realized that I am overpaying for XM radio on one of our cars. Old me would be on the phone asap getting a better deal. Today, I am like ill get to it eventually.

Medicare and Medicaid are insanely fraught with abuse. If they actually go for this Ill be impressed. Do you recall the recent big story about United screwing medicare advantage by putting diseases on patients that either arent there or are placed by some nurse where the patient gets $50 for the visit? Just google medicare fraud and abuse.. the numbers arent small. I hope they go for this. Some of the stories are insane. There is also a ton of money to be gained by fixing the PBM scam.

NOw I agree here. This is not how govt should function and that I don't like. 80+ EOs that are whipsawing industries is not good. A different political party will win and then undo this and things will swing wildly the other way.. Just shouldn't work that way.

Overall, we don't have to like it.. we can also love it.. reality whether it is good or bad it is popular with the voters.

I also think while I don't love Musk in his role a good solid audit by someone with an eye on waste is something we should do pretty frequently. Govt has entropy and just wants to expand forever like outer space. See DoD audits.. cant pass. huge missing amounts of money.. on and on..

The govt needs to be accountable to the people as a whole but certainly to taxpayers.

To balance the budget and start to make headway vs the national debt it will take a mix of tax increases and spending cuts. Sacred cows need to be slaughtered.
 
EctopicFetus said:
You are totally right about trusting trump. And yes he was president but lets be very honest here. The president has access to all sorts of things (basically everything) but they cant focus on everything. Thats what is different here. Their focus is on slashing government. I am honestly unsure what Biden focused his energy on. Elon is brash and certainly on the spectrum and his access to X and being unafraid of calling out the waste is what is different.

I was discussing this with friends and the approval for trump is the highest it has ever been for him. Publishing in the newspaper is too slow and lacks the eyeballs that an online platform gets.

Re the tax cuts recent data shows all time tax revenue even with lower rates.

Re the NIH being a tiny proportion I agree. I also think the point is they are looking everywhere. The size of our government means it is rife to have waste. Looking at my personal budget.. when I was a broke college and med student I had very little to no waste. Couldnt afford it.. Now everytime I have the time I see weird stuff on my credit card waste in spending, waste is everywhere. Not huge numbers but it is there.. used to never be there. Budget grew and so did waste. I will go through it and clean things up eventually. Heck, just recently I realized that I am overpaying for XM radio on one of our cars. Old me would be on the phone asap getting a better deal. Today, I am like ill get to it eventually.

Medicare and Medicaid are insanely fraught with abuse. If they actually go for this Ill be impressed. Do you recall the recent big story about United screwing medicare advantage by putting diseases on patients that either arent there or are placed by some nurse where the patient gets $50 for the visit? Just google medicare fraud and abuse.. the numbers arent small. I hope they go for this. Some of the stories are insane. There is also a ton of money to be gained by fixing the PBM scam.

NOw I agree here. This is not how govt should function and that I don't like. 80+ EOs that are whipsawing industries is not good. A different political party will win and then undo this and things will swing wildly the other way.. Just shouldn't work that way.

Overall, we don't have to like it.. we can also love it.. reality whether it is good or bad it is popular with the voters.

I also think while I don't love Musk in his role a good solid audit by someone with an eye on waste is something we should do pretty frequently. Govt has entropy and just wants to expand forever like outer space. See DoD audits.. cant pass. huge missing amounts of money.. on and on..

The govt needs to be accountable to the people as a whole but certainly to taxpayers.

To balance the budget and start to make headway vs the national debt it will take a mix of tax increases and spending cuts. Sacred cows need to be slaughtered.
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I agree with more than I disagree here.

Bluntly, I think his first time he didn’t expect to win and surrounded himself with experts from the old guard, which led to huge contradictions between what he was saying and what they were doing. This time he surrounded himself with effective people from the heritage foundation, my concern with them is mostly about their apparent disregard for due process, the rule of law (see recent tweet from jd Vance about disregarding judicial review, it’s absurd), and checks and balances in general.

I can’t get behind “the president can’t focus on everything.” The buck stops there. It’s fine to say you failed at something, that’s life. But acting like it’s some super secret thing that they only just got access to when they literally ran it for four years is bs.

I also think people with access to classified information (e.g. the treasury, dept of energy) need to be vetted and receive security clearances.

I don’t care where they publish it, but they need to publish actual data and not just make claims based on information they have reviewed and not posted.

I completely agree there is waste in Medicare, Medicaid and even the nih. No one who has worked in a hospital can argue with that.

Targeting administrative bloat and the shell game crap is what needs to happen.

It’s complete crap that I don’t know how much I’m paying for a service for a month after I receive it, and I have no opportunity to price shop. It’s complete crap I can’t tell someone in advance how much it costs to give them 3 stitches. It’s also crap that I routinely have to call my insurance company to remind them that the services i received are not out of network when they covered services before and after the fact from the same doctor (I don’t think this is an accident, I honestly think it’s an intentional “error” and just one of 500 bs games they play).

I don’t get how we can claim informed consent is so important but not acknowledge hitting people with 4-5 figure debt without informing them upfront.

So yeah, absolutely there is waste. But it’s like cancer/chemo. You can’t just cut off a persons head and say “look I fixed the cancer.” You need to be selective and kill as much cancer as possible and without sacrificing the body
 
My wife works in academia, she was excited by this.

Not my area, so if my summary is off I apologize.

So every grant she gets, her institution takes 50% of it as admin overhead. It's so bad she had a private donor back out because he really liked some stuff she was doing and when he found out 50% isn't getting used for what it was intended negotiations broke down and he walked away without donating.

She told me of another instance where the grant office asked her to convert a students stipend to some othe type of grant and offered a "deal" of reduced overhead.

The kicker was the student was on a type of grant that the institution couldn't actually touch so they were essentially trying to grift her by slurping from more funds.

Now with a 15% cap, as she explains it, they can't steal more than that. I asked how it impacted the institution in general and she said the "work" they do to grift her funds is essentially rubberstamping the disbursement and taking half.
 
throway134 said:
I don’t care where they publish it, but they need to publish actual data and not just make claims based on information they have reviewed and not posted.
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You can find pretty much everything here: USAspending.gov

You just have to know what you're searching for. I'm certainly not a software engineer or data scientist but I have seen others who are explain that while the information is there, sometimes it can be incredibly difficult to find it.

There have been Twitter accounts that have been exposing all of this ridiculous spending, grants, awards, etc. for years. This is just one of them: x.com
 
I don't trust any politician completely, but we went from business (corruption) as usual in the last 4 years with zero attempt at transparency to at least some attempt at reform and cost cutting. $59 million last week from FEMA to house illegals in manhattan hotels (it was part of a larger aid program for the Pakistani government).

While you can be critical of Elon's crazy antics and a lot of what he says, he still has accomplished more than any politician in Washington from either side has:

1. Making electric cars at a profit (Ford lost $4B on their electric division last year)
2. Starlink - if you've been on JSX or another airline that uses Starlink this is revolutionary and light years ahead of any other technology previously
3. Cheap space travel (which made Starlink possible)
4. Twitter files - exposing collusion efforts between government and private tech companies to censor free speech. He's currently fighting the UK and EU's draconian speech laws, however this is an uphill fight as they don't have a first amendment.

Does he have conflicts of interest? Absolutely. So does every other person in government, business, ect. I'd ask those who are critical, if you don't want Elon going through the budget and exposing/cutting fraud who would you choose? Politicians on both sides have been completely unwilling to this due to enormous amount of $$$ and kickbacks they all get from the money laundering. If you leave it up to them, the budget and fraud will just continue to increase every year.
 
JacobMcCandles said:
You can find pretty much everything here: USAspending.gov

You just have to know what you're searching for. I'm certainly not a software engineer or data scientist but I have seen others who are explain that while the information is there, sometimes it can be incredibly difficult to find it.

There have been Twitter accounts that have been exposing all of this ridiculous spending, grants, awards, etc. for years. This is just one of them: x.com
Click to expand...

The information may be there, but it takes someone with a large enough megaphone to expose it, and someone with enough power to cut. Most media outlets won't report on fraud/abuse as they are in on the scam. Most politicians won't do anything to stop the waste/fraud because they are bought and paid for.
 
It's easy to break things. It's easy to go "I don't think that amount of money should be used for that purpose". It's (apparently) easy to believe in a world were waste can be eliminated with the stroke of a key.

You all have worked in hospitals. I'm sure those hospitals have gone on efficiency kicks where they fire off a bunch of initiatives to eliminate waste. These initiatives are typically undertaken by people with a deep understanding of the process they're changing using evidenced based processes with multiple real world successes. Did those initiatives and their 2nd and 3rd order effects actually make the hospital better? Or can you now longer handle any surge in patient volume because LEANing out the staffing means slashing the OT that kept your best clinical nurses around? Do the phones no longer work reliably because you were efficienct about changing to the same vendor as your networking and a new system "upgrade" just took out the digital network your phones use?

Now replace the agents of change in the above scenario with someone that has a surface (at best) level understanding of what they're changing in a system that's orders of magnitude more complex and has absolutely no accountability or skin in the game. And you're confident what comes out is going to be better than what we have? As much as people like to say it couldn't get worse, I think it's helpful to remember that 2024 America doesn't represent rock bottom.
 
We've never had an agent of change before, so I don't think anyone knows where this goes. Our system as it stands is unsustainable. It will stop at some point regardless of what we do. I agree 2024 is definitely not rock bottom,
 
Arcan57 said:
It's easy to break things. It's easy to go "I don't think that amount of money should be used for that purpose". It's (apparently) easy to believe in a world were waste can be eliminated with the stroke of a key.

You all have worked in hospitals. I'm sure those hospitals have gone on efficiency kicks where they fire off a bunch of initiatives to eliminate waste. These initiatives are typically undertaken by people with a deep understanding of the process they're changing using evidenced based processes with multiple real world successes. Did those initiatives and their 2nd and 3rd order effects actually make the hospital better? Or can you now longer handle any surge in patient volume because LEANing out the staffing means slashing the OT that kept your best clinical nurses around? Do the phones no longer work reliably because you were efficienct about changing to the same vendor as your networking and a new system "upgrade" just took out the digital network your phones use?

Now replace the agents of change in the above scenario with someone that has a surface (at best) level understanding of what they're changing in a system that's orders of magnitude more complex and has absolutely no accountability or skin in the game. And you're confident what comes out is going to be better than what we have? As much as people like to say it couldn't get worse, I think it's helpful to remember that 2024 America doesn't represent rock bottom.
Click to expand...

Yeah, but I'm pretty sure we don't need 25 million for Iraqi Sesame street, 8 million for condoms in Gaza, or 12 million (or whatever) to try and convince Indonesia that coffeeshops should have gender-inclusive DEI policies in a nation where women de-facto are not equal because of religious belief.
 
RustedFox said:
Yeah, but I'm pretty sure we don't need 25 million for Iraqi Sesame street, 8 million for condoms in Gaza, or 12 million (or whatever) to try and convince Indonesia that coffeeshops should have gender-inclusive DEI policies in a nation where women de-facto are not equal because of religious belief.
Click to expand...
You notice people only complain about Musk/Trump but don't actually acknowledge the ridiculous nonsense that's been found?

I can't wait until they get into Medicare. That's where the real money is, and it's probably far worse than anyone thought. Imagine we can potentially make massive cuts to healthcare expenditures without pissing off the seniors?
 
ScepticSkeksis said:
You notice people only complain about Musk/Trump but don't actually acknowledge the ridiculous nonsense that's been found?

I can't wait until they get into Medicare. That's where the real money is, and it's probably far worse than anyone thought. Imagine we can potentially make massive cuts to healthcare expenditures without pissing off the seniors?
Click to expand...

Honestly - at the very least, I see this as "a taste of their own medicine".
We're constantly told to do more with less. Let's see how the people in supervisory/administrative roles like it.
 
ScepticSkeksis said:
You notice people only complain about Musk/Trump but don't actually acknowledge the ridiculous nonsense that's been found?

I can't wait until they get into Medicare. That's where the real money is, and it's probably far worse than anyone thought. Imagine we can potentially make massive cuts to healthcare expenditures without pissing off the seniors?
Click to expand...
I’d imagine there’s probably enough fraud and abuse that could save a ton of money without actually affecting the benefits. Same with Social Security.
 
ScepticSkeksis said:
You notice people only complain about Musk/Trump but don't actually acknowledge the ridiculous nonsense that's been found?

I can't wait until they get into Medicare. That's where the real money is, and it's probably far worse than anyone thought. Imagine we can potentially make massive cuts to healthcare expenditures without pissing off the seniors?
Click to expand...
You're making my nipples hard

Can't wait til we're no longer the most expensive healthcare country in the world

Today 100 congresspeople in total have joined the DOGE caucus

I get it's untested. And many people doubt. But as others have said the things that came before have failed, no one has a better idea
 
It's not "the sky is falling" re: America and American competitiveness in the sciences and the world – but it's not great.

The harms across institutions will be felt unevenly; certain types of projects depend upon the underlying infrastructure of an institution more than others. Running an animal laboratory for genetic engineering to produce knockout mice to test targeted gene therapies for cancer? Some of that will be budgeted, but the physical building, the security guard, the techs who maintain the sequencers, the expensive zero-downtime freezers, etc. is all funded out of "indirects". It's not just "get off the gravy train, paper-pusher Karen". This isn't to say there won't be egregious examples of waste or self-enrichment to be found, but there is a Reason for indirect costs to be high – and high at those specific research universities at the forefront of discovery.

It probably would have been a less-injurious strategy to make the cut – but allow budget resubmissions for funded grants to rewrite some of that assumed infrastructure cost into direct costs. The concept of streamlining and rooting out waste is not incorrect, but this is a really dumb way to go about it.
 
xaelia said:
This isn't to say there won't be egregious examples of waste or self-enrichment to be found, but there is a Reason for indirect costs to be high – and high at those specific research universities at the forefront of discovery.
Click to expand...
Such as $2,000 a month in fresh flowers for a dude’s house.

IMG_0162.jpeg



This was in 1991 so you can imagine some of the ridiculousness now.
 
Last edited:
xaelia said:
It's not "the sky is falling" re: America and American competitiveness in the sciences and the world – but it's not great.

The harms across institutions will be felt unevenly; certain types of projects depend upon the underlying infrastructure of an institution more than others. Running an animal laboratory for genetic engineering to produce knockout mice to test targeted gene therapies for cancer? Some of that will be budgeted, but the physical building, the security guard, the techs who maintain the sequencers, the expensive zero-downtime freezers, etc. is all funded out of "indirects". It's not just "get off the gravy train, paper-pusher Karen". This isn't to say there won't be egregious examples of waste or self-enrichment to be found, but there is a Reason for indirect costs to be high – and high at those specific research universities at the forefront of discovery.

It probably would have been a less-injurious strategy to make the cut – but allow budget resubmissions for funded grants to rewrite some of that assumed infrastructure cost into direct costs. The concept of streamlining and rooting out waste is not incorrect, but this is a really dumb way to go about it.
Click to expand...
So the massive tuition hikes over the past 20 years can't pay for any of that stuff? They need facilities, security and infrastructure regardless of research. The institutions just look at it like extra gravy they can get from Daddy Fed, so why not?
 
Re what they are doing my thought is that sometimes it is so broken you have to start from scratch. There will be by-catch like fishing with big nets. Sometimes things happen you don't want to happen. Their process is very far from perfect but IMO we need some shaking up of the broken and dysfunctional system we have.
 
ScepticSkeksis said:
So the massive tuition hikes over the past 20 years can't pay for any of that stuff? They need facilities, security and infrastructure regardless of research. The institutions just look at it like extra gravy they can get from Daddy Fed, so why not?
Click to expand...
1739246778149.png

2025 Federal Updates

Tracking Federal Updates Under the New Administration
research.uiowa.edu research.uiowa.edu

There's a lot of collateral damage for the supposed inefficiencies neé corruption related to these indirect payments. There's also characterisation of this as "so broken you have to start from scratch", which seems specious and unsupported.

I don't know enough about how universities manage their budgets and whether endowments can be repurposed – though I imagine there are many programs clamoring for funding within those institutions. It seems unreasonable to assume the system isn't already operating on a knife's edge – I've worked as a research assistant at CHOP (I helped set up PECARN) a long time ago, and it paid garbage. The "fat" in the system may be a chimera.

I don't think any tuition dollars would adequately cover the specialised laboratory space and equipment needed to conduct cutting-edge research.
 
xaelia said:
View attachment 398677

2025 Federal Updates

Tracking Federal Updates Under the New Administration
research.uiowa.edu research.uiowa.edu

There's a lot of collateral damage for the supposed inefficiencies neé corruption related to these indirect payments. There's also characterisation of this as "so broken you have to start from scratch", which seems specious and unsupported.

I don't know enough about how universities manage their budgets and whether endowments can be repurposed – though I imagine there are many programs clamoring for funding within those institutions. It seems unreasonable to assume the system isn't already operating on a knife's edge – I've worked as a research assistant at CHOP (I helped set up PECARN) a long time ago, and it paid garbage. The "fat" in the system may be a chimera.

I don't think any tuition dollars would adequately cover the specialised laboratory space and equipment needed to conduct cutting-edge research.
Click to expand...
Maybe they can stop spending so much on nonsense. Universities are known for this. Tons of random offices and people doing very little. You mention CHOP, work the logic for me for PENNs tuition being 70k per student. I went to a costly ivory tower institution. I think it was worthwhile for me.. Things were a lot cheaper but PENN has roughly 10k undergrad students, 70k a pop.. Roughly the same size for grad school. Huge endowment.. i mean they get tons of NIH money..

meanwhile if they create a good drug the universities collect royalties on licensing this work. So the federal govt foots the bill and the university benefits off of it. Put another way.. the US taxpayer foots the bill for the research and then pays a premium on the product when they use it. The article I saw mentioned that this is how remicade was discovered and NYU has gotten over $1B for the drug.
 
EctopicFetus said:
Maybe they can stop spending so much on nonsense. Universities are known for this. Tons of random offices and people doing very little. You mention CHOP, work the logic for me for PENNs tuition being 70k per student. I went to a costly ivory tower institution. I think it was worthwhile for me.. Things were a lot cheaper but PENN has roughly 10k undergrad students, 70k a pop.. Roughly the same size for grad school. Huge endowment.. i mean they get tons of NIH money..

meanwhile if they create a good drug the universities collect royalties on licensing this work. So the federal govt foots the bill and the university benefits off of it. Put another way.. the US taxpayer foots the bill for the research and then pays a premium on the product when they use it. The article I saw mentioned that this is how remicade was discovered and NYU has gotten over $1B for the drug.
Click to expand...
Also don't forget about the money these schools make off the athletes, while paying them nothing.
 
EctopicFetus said:
Maybe they can stop spending so much on nonsense. Universities are known for this. Tons of random offices and people doing very little. You mention CHOP, work the logic for me for PENNs tuition being 70k per student. I went to a costly ivory tower institution. I think it was worthwhile for me.. Things were a lot cheaper but PENN has roughly 10k undergrad students, 70k a pop.. Roughly the same size for grad school. Huge endowment.. i mean they get tons of NIH money..

meanwhile if they create a good drug the universities collect royalties on licensing this work. So the federal govt foots the bill and the university benefits off of it. Put another way.. the US taxpayer foots the bill for the research and then pays a premium on the product when they use it. The article I saw mentioned that this is how remicade was discovered and NYU has gotten over $1B for the drug.
Click to expand...
It appears this is a strongly held opinion based on assumptions, extrapolation, and little comprehensive knowledge of the funding distribution from direct and indirect costs at research institutions, and their relationship to overall institutional funding for tuition, education, capital expenditure – and, most importantly, the football team[😛].

I can't find a productive manner to engage using evidence of the impact on rank-and-file researchers, so I'll see myself out.
 
xaelia said:
It appears this is a strongly held opinion based on assumptions, extrapolation, and little comprehensive knowledge of the funding distribution from direct and indirect costs at research institutions, and their relationship to overall institutional funding for tuition, education, capital expenditure – and, most importantly, the football team[😛].

I can't find a productive manner to engage using evidence of the impact on rank-and-file researchers, so I'll see myself out.
Click to expand...
This isnt an airport.. no need to announce your departure.. (Kidding)..

But in all seriousness, it is a large business. That they choose to silo money is more of a sign of a problem than it is some magical rule that cant be changed. When these institutions choose to spend money they magically can. I love research… but perhaps a smarter approach is needed. Hopefully this is a step toward that. The universities can perhaps focus more on their mission of educating students etc.
 
I’ll start paying attention when they start producing studies that can actually be replicated. Funny how some people love to rail against big industries like pharma, oil, and tech but conveniently ignore that research itself has become a massive industry—one that thrives on churning out glowing results while quietly burying anything inconvenient. At least at our institution, it’s more about the volume of publications than their actual quality. In a world flooded with journals, getting something “peer-reviewed” is often just a matter of persistence—or a well-placed payment.
 
Make industry pay NIH when they use NIH research to get a drug to market. Currently, pharma gets to draft off of NIH research while engaging in practices that are actually destructive on a societal level.
 
Arcan57 said:
Make industry pay NIH when they use NIH research to get a drug to market. Currently, pharma gets to draft off of NIH research while engaging in practices that are actually destructive on a societal level.
Click to expand...
Industiry instead pays the licensing to the universities.. Its insane.. what a great deal. Do research on someone else's dime, while that same thing brings your university fame and indirect $$$. Then if you make something useful you own it and can license it to big pharma and make more money then as well.
 
Man, I'm probably just some woke lib ****, but this (and many other) moves by this admin seem so short sighted and foolhardy, I almost have to believe they are intentionally so.

I'd like to preface this by saying that I am entirely for cutting waste, reducing our national debt, and yet still support my tax dollars being used for worthy causes as I'm sure most of us do (well, maybe). My society/community is responsible for much of what I am and my accomplishments today, and most of that is funded through tax dollars. However, I think there's a right way and a wrong way to go about making these cuts.

One, to release a policy/statement on a Friday that is supposed to go into effect Monday is, as the kids say, a real dick move. I have been reading many opinions of firsthand researchers/ancillary support staff for research and there are actually many agree that this is a fair place for cuts. However, trying to drastically cut budgets this much and this quickly will end in layoffs and kneecap research that may take decades to recover, if it ever does. It's easy to cherry pick Ivy League universities with billions in endowments for headlines, but it is easy to see that public and private universities will all suffer from this. Even a best case scenario with few layoffs, it still makes research less efficient because researchers are either doing unrelated tasks themselves since there isn't appropriate ancillary support, or spending significantly more time on accounting for these tasks to budget them as direct costs, also taking them away from direct research tasks.

The indirect trickle-down (if you will) costs also include things that you probably took for granted in undergrad, such as easy access to scientific journals; at many universities these are funded from small portions of grant money.

Not to mention that the ENTIRE yearly NIH budget of about 48 billion is quickly eclipsed by the approximately 2.2 billion per DAY we spend on our military, making up >40% of worldwide military spending. Surely there aren't "indirect costs" in military contracts where the fat can be trimmed? After all, what's good for the goose.....yet somehow I don't think I'll see anyone mentioning this in the stocks thread when PLTR comes up. And the current administration has signaled that we need to increase our defense spending, not cut it! Surely there's no waste there.

Also, this may contribute to what I fear is a brain drain that is coming for the US in the next several decades. Why would foreign grads continue to flock to the US to work in increasingly underfunded labs with unstable federal leadership that can cut you down at the knees without warning? Less R&D leads to fewer discoveries, innovations, patents, and downstream of that, fewer marketable end products for universities, companies, and our country as exports. And I know that private R&D dwarfs public in the US by about 4:1, but this allows an opportunity for other countries like China and South Korea to more actively recruit talent, increase their scientific output, and increase GDP from these products, services, and technologies that result. Stronger economies elsewhere eventually may lead to the more desirable jobs being elsewhere instead of the US. I think this will be a long and slow shift, and I don't think it's inevitable, but I certainly think it is possible.

Lastly is the erosion of soft power. Fingers are very quickly pointed to things like USAID and seemingly wasteful spending, like condoms in Gaza (which, for the record, isn't a real thing and if you think it's a real thing, no really, it isn't, and Trump was probably mistaking this for *checks notes* a pediatric AIDS prevention nonprofit operating in Mozambique, including the Gaza province) or Iraqi children's TV programming (a show that basically tried to instill western values, kinda effed up if you think about it too long but from a US-centric view it's just another way of cultivating soft power in the next generation of foreign children).

However US foreign aid is something around 70-80 billion a year (again, around 10% of what we spend on our hard power), and there are innumerable, immeasurable effects on US soft power and US hegemony. Think our humanitarian spending in Africa doesn't matter and we should stop that because it's a waste of tax dollars? It'll matter a whole heck of a lot more once China more fully injects themselves into Africa and controls a lot of rare earth metal rights in the next few decades and the US has no local influence because not our country, not our problem. Seemingly simple things like foreign aid buys a TON of influence, and "America first" isolationist policies are cutting off the American nose to spite the face, while 1/3 of the body is cheering for it because the past 15 years the US has had such an anti-expert and anti-intellectual hard-on that folks can't look up from TV talking heads whinging about the DEI/CRT boogeyman to think about the potential downstream effects besides the price of eggs (still waiting) and the desire to own the libs.

Same with the most idiotic trade war with some of our longest-standing allies and trading partners that is absolutely eroding confidence in long term strategic economic partnerships, which will inevitably lead to America getting what some in it apparently want: increased isolation, decreased global presence and trade, increased cohesion within the EU and BRICS, and all the negative economic implications that come with all of the above (history repeats itself, Smoot-Hawley, anyone?). Sure, Canada and Mexico might suffer short term, but the US can eventually bleed out if it shoots itself in the foot too many times. The world grows tired of our feckless leadership - other countries don't look at the past 3 weeks and think, "Yeah, this is stable and good for everyone."

Alright well this got away from me a bit at 2 AM, I definitely won't regret this in the morning...

tl;dr: gg America hope cutting research funding and everything else goes the way you think it will, it's akin to thinking your surgeon using a machete instead of a scalpel on your surgery is a good idea because a machete can cut more at once
 
gruemd said:
Man, I'm probably just some woke lib ****, but this (and many other) moves by this admin seem so short sighted and foolhardy, I almost have to believe they are intentionally so.

I'd like to preface this by saying that I am entirely for cutting waste, reducing our national debt, and yet still support my tax dollars being used for worthy causes as I'm sure most of us do (well, maybe). My society/community is responsible for much of what I am and my accomplishments today, and most of that is funded through tax dollars. However, I think there's a right way and a wrong way to go about making these cuts.

One, to release a policy/statement on a Friday that is supposed to go into effect Monday is, as the kids say, a real dick move. I have been reading many opinions of firsthand researchers/ancillary support staff for research and there are actually many agree that this is a fair place for cuts. However, trying to drastically cut budgets this much and this quickly will end in layoffs and kneecap research that may take decades to recover, if it ever does. It's easy to cherry pick Ivy League universities with billions in endowments for headlines, but it is easy to see that public and private universities will all suffer from this. Even a best case scenario with few layoffs, it still makes research less efficient because researchers are either doing unrelated tasks themselves since there isn't appropriate ancillary support, or spending significantly more time on accounting for these tasks to budget them as direct costs, also taking them away from direct research tasks.

The indirect trickle-down (if you will) costs also include things that you probably took for granted in undergrad, such as easy access to scientific journals; at many universities these are funded from small portions of grant money.

Not to mention that the ENTIRE yearly NIH budget of about 48 billion is quickly eclipsed by the approximately 2.2 billion per DAY we spend on our military, making up >40% of worldwide military spending. Surely there aren't "indirect costs" in military contracts where the fat can be trimmed? After all, what's good for the goose.....yet somehow I don't think I'll see anyone mentioning this in the stocks thread when PLTR comes up. And the current administration has signaled that we need to increase our defense spending, not cut it! Surely there's no waste there.

Also, this may contribute to what I fear is a brain drain that is coming for the US in the next several decades. Why would foreign grads continue to flock to the US to work in increasingly underfunded labs with unstable federal leadership that can cut you down at the knees without warning? Less R&D leads to fewer discoveries, innovations, patents, and downstream of that, fewer marketable end products for universities, companies, and our country as exports. And I know that private R&D dwarfs public in the US by about 4:1, but this allows an opportunity for other countries like China and South Korea to more actively recruit talent, increase their scientific output, and increase GDP from these products, services, and technologies that result. Stronger economies elsewhere eventually may lead to the more desirable jobs being elsewhere instead of the US. I think this will be a long and slow shift, and I don't think it's inevitable, but I certainly think it is possible.

Lastly is the erosion of soft power. Fingers are very quickly pointed to things like USAID and seemingly wasteful spending, like condoms in Gaza (which, for the record, isn't a real thing and if you think it's a real thing, no really, it isn't, and Trump was probably mistaking this for *checks notes* a pediatric AIDS prevention nonprofit operating in Mozambique, including the Gaza province) or Iraqi children's TV programming (a show that basically tried to instill western values, kinda effed up if you think about it too long but from a US-centric view it's just another way of cultivating soft power in the next generation of foreign children).

However US foreign aid is something around 70-80 billion a year (again, around 10% of what we spend on our hard power), and there are innumerable, immeasurable effects on US soft power and US hegemony. Think our humanitarian spending in Africa doesn't matter and we should stop that because it's a waste of tax dollars? It'll matter a whole heck of a lot more once China more fully injects themselves into Africa and controls a lot of rare earth metal rights in the next few decades and the US has no local influence because not our country, not our problem. Seemingly simple things like foreign aid buys a TON of influence, and "America first" isolationist policies are cutting off the American nose to spite the face, while 1/3 of the body is cheering for it because the past 15 years the US has had such an anti-expert and anti-intellectual hard-on that folks can't look up from TV talking heads whinging about the DEI/CRT boogeyman to think about the potential downstream effects besides the price of eggs (still waiting) and the desire to own the libs.

Same with the most idiotic trade war with some of our longest-standing allies and trading partners that is absolutely eroding confidence in long term strategic economic partnerships, which will inevitably lead to America getting what some in it apparently want: increased isolation, decreased global presence and trade, increased cohesion within the EU and BRICS, and all the negative economic implications that come with all of the above (history repeats itself, Smoot-Hawley, anyone?). Sure, Canada and Mexico might suffer short term, but the US can eventually bleed out if it shoots itself in the foot too many times. The world grows tired of our feckless leadership - other countries don't look at the past 3 weeks and think, "Yeah, this is stable and good for everyone."

Alright well this got away from me a bit at 2 AM, I definitely won't regret this in the morning...

tl;dr: gg America hope cutting research funding and everything else goes the way you think it will, it's akin to thinking your surgeon using a machete instead of a scalpel on your surgery is a good idea because a machete can cut more at once
Click to expand...
You are right.. that being said so much research is frankly stupid and meaningless. Now I get that much of that is hindsight bias. The idea that the researchers will have to spend time doing work that is beneath them probably falls on deaf ears when you are speaking to docs. unless you work with residents to do your scut I bet there are plenty of docs on here who transport patients to CT, answer the phone, maybe even have to make their own calls to transfer. I spend a ton of my time at work doing stupid stuff someone else should do. Throw in the stupidity of documentation for billing purposes or filling out stupid forms.. Again, sorry if my empathy for these almighty researchers is at 0 on the topic.

I completely agree that it is craptastic to announce on Friday for a Monday implementation. I do expect that DOGE will come after the DoD/Pentagon soon. I mean they have trillions that are unaccounted for. There is a stupid amount of waste there. They know it.. I suspect it will come but since it is holy to the right they wont make quite as a big of a stink about it.

Trump and DOGE to look at military spending

I think the same for Medicare/Medicaid.. tons of waste, docs will whine and the cuts will be imperfect but 90% of it will be good and meaningful.

Regarding the brain drain you are right but people are not going to go to China. Work is work but any sane human would rather live in the US than China. I think people may stay in their home countries and start businesses there rather than coming here but as you said, I think it would be a slow process. In the end America is fairly unique in the ability to start a company and profit the way we allow here including relatively low taxes compared to many other countries.

Re USAID you are right.. that being said it doesn't work well. The ROI sucks. We have sent a ton of money to the Palestinians.. yet the soft power led to them celebrating on 9/11. That image should be burned into the brain of everyone.

You selected a few of the USAID spending points.. I think most people would agree some degree of this makes sense. That being said help me understand why we should be spending money to promote atheism in Nepal, Drag shows in south America, transgender operas,

Here are others... USAID Waste

A lot of the USAID stuff is DEI stupidity. Its like they took all the DEI buzz terms and combined it and threw money at it in other countries. Its honestly kind of wild. Again, I'm not saying it is all stupid but a certain sliver certainly is/was.

So we can argue about sesame street in Iraq but it is hard to fathom that there isn't waste (we all know there is) and some of the programs are stupid and a waste of our money.

I do agree that the trade war makes no sense. He seems to have gotten what he wants but this diplomacy would be better served behind closed doors than in the public forum. I think his mention of slowing the flow of fentanyl is frankly stupid. I don't understand what the upside is here.
 
Nobody has been able to meaningfully cut spending in the government ever so I’m ok with these seemingly drastic measures. As mentioned, it sounds like every section of spending is going to be examined so the people who give the “but it’s <1% of the budget” excuse can finally put that to rest because everything needs to be looked at. I fully acknowledge that there will be some bad cuts but that’s going to happen when you’re using an axe and not a scalpel but I’m ok with that. Cut hard and then add stuff back gradually when it becomes more apparent that particular spending is worth it. The gravy train for a lot of things is hopefully coming to an end.
 
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