That’s exactly what they voted for.
A side effect of this is that NIH has indefinitely paused all grant review panels, all council approval panels (where grants scored for funding are officially funded) and all current grant notice of awards. I have several colleagues who were in THE MIDDLE of a grant review opanel yestereday when the panel was canceled mid-swing.
All funding mechanisms devoted in any way to diversity canceled.
So no grants being reviewed, no grants being officially funded, and no grants selected for payment, paid.
People don’t realize the timeline on NIH grants. We often plan them a year in advance. Submission dates are 3 times a year. If a review panel is canceled, it can push back the grant up to a year depending on when they decide (if at all) to pick it back up.
Academic NIH grants employ over 300,000 people. Many of those people will lose their jobs if this goes on for more than a couple weeks. Some sooner - the current review cycle is shot. IN my own lab I am going to have to likely let 2 people go at th beginning of summer - I have 5 grants in for review this cycle.
Trump can’t kill NIH funding without congressional approval (which he’s unlikely to get). So he did this instead. NIH funding is allocated - they just can’t spend it when things are frozen.
This will cripple US biomedical funding. Which, I gather, is the point of course.
MURICA
Probably the researchers will move to other countries, further weakening the United States.
The ones that can.
I could easily (I get recruitment overtures all the time) if I was single. But not as easy to move when you have a family and roots.
I’m also pretty pissed at my institution. Right after the election I had meetings with my dean and VP of research and asked what contigency plans the University was putting in place for if/when the new adminstration fucked with the NIH as revenge payback for COVID. I was told that there was no plan in the works, that I was overreacting, and that congress would protect the NIH and things would be business as usual and to calm down.
Right.
Of course. When Trump shits in a bowl these people eat it right up and blame anyone else because it tastes bad.
Did you get that in writing?
OK, you’re excused this time. Just don’t repeat it.
Reminds me of COVID testing that Trump didn’t want to take place. If it’s not documented, we can close our eyes and pretend it’s not happening.
Lol they would never put anything like that in writing.
Voters do sometimes not realize what they’re actually voting for. When the 18th Amendment was ratified, it didn’t actually define what an intoxicating liquor was, leaving that for Congress to legislate. There were actually voters who believed strong liquors like bourbon and gin would be illegal but their beloved beer and wine would be left alone. That didn’t happen with the Volstead Act of course.
In the last few days I’ve seen a lot of Trump supporters who are shocked, SHOCKED, the leopards are eating their faces. Folks are worried their friends or relatives might be deported because they believed Trump was only going to target the “bad hombres.” Our friend John Basham, and my own sister, didn’t imagine Trump’s desire to cut government spending would affect them. It was supposed to affect those wasteful programs they didn’t care about. Of course folks like Basham have access to some high quality copium, and they’ll shift the blame away from Trump. I wonder if they’ll ever run out of copium?
From the NY Times:
What Republicans Could Cut to Pay for Trump’s Tax Cuts: Medicaid and More - The New York Times
Headline is “House G.O.P. Floats Medicaid Cuts and More to Finance Trump’s Huge Agenda”.
Yeah, prior to the election, I posted here that there were lots of ways the bureaucrats could screw with government functions that wouldn’t directly contradict their Congressionally-mandated duties. This kind of thing, pausing a review, and making the people involved do it all over again, is exactly the sort of thing I was thinking about. It likely won’t kill everything the NIH does, but it puts enough barriers up that at least some people will give up on it, either because their situation requires it, or they just give up in disgust.
For example, funding like this supports a whole lot of grad students. They don’t have a lot of extra cash lying around, usually, and if their grants are paused for more than a few months, a lot of them will have to drop out and get whatever jobs they can find. How many will be willing, or even allowed, to return to school if and when the funding starts to flow again?
I was caught just like that, back in the 90s, when the Canadian government at the time cut a lot of their science funding. I was just finishing my MSc, and couldn’t find a PhD spot to save my life.
I’m not sure how grad student visas work, but if foreign grad students in the US lose their positions due to funding cuts are they no longer eligible to reside in the US?
Sounds like a win-win situation for the MAGA xenophobes.
I don’t know about that, being as I’m Canadian, but I wouldn’t be surprised by this. As you say, a win-win for the deplorables, and in the process, they ruin a lot of people’s lives. Having to return home with only a partial education, and no degree, will likely fuck up their employment prospects for years to come, and maybe forever.
Send them this the next time the subject comes up:
Huge brain drain for the US.
Braindraining the swamp!
But His Tweet Is Important – He’s Talking About A Setback To Him And His Family.
We’Re LuCky It IsN’t AlTeRnAtInG cAsE.
Looks like what happens in some apps when you type nothing but all caps, it switches to that format.
But yeah, very quickly it becomes the fault of malicious compliance from the Deep Staters. And hey guess now there can be another order telling everyone in the regular service to name and report anyone who is giving an order that makes Trump look bad within 10 days…