Comment by foxglacier
8 days ago
Musk has said that he like Xavier Milei's way of "deleting" government departments without too much investigation of their importance because if they're important, you can always put them back. He's probably taking a similar approach with DOGE. Some researchers and aid organizations lose their funding today but if they really are important and not just grift, they or their successors will probably get it back later. This isn't like social welfare where people might starve if their regular payment is stopped. Nobody's going to starve if research funding is cut. Researchers might have to get another job but that's an expected and normal part of life, especially for academics.
You can't just turn people off and on again like computers and expect them to carry on as before.
You cut funding for cancer trials people are already enrolled in, people die.
You cut funding for HIV drugs, patients' viral loads go up. Even if you put the funding back before they die, their viruses have already evolved resistance to the drugs they used to be on.
You cut military aid to US allies, those countries learn the US isn't a reliable ally. Soft power centuries in the making evaporates, just like that.
Well, except for everyone on USAID food, NIH funded trials, god I can go on. Just because you don't know precisely what you're cutting doesn't mean it's not important.