Comment by vel0city

> it's hard for me to not think that's crazy and why can't that money go to average americans

Are there world-class research facilities in your small town? Why would it be hard for you to see it makes sense for billions to be spent on research at world-class facilities with world-class scientists?

FWIW, chances are whatever local state university nearby also receives quite a bit from federal grants as well. But it probably scales based on the research facilities and staff actually there. Do you think it would be better management of federal resources to instead spend the same amount at facilities that don't do nearly as impactful or nearly as much research?

These are grants for specific research. Researchers put together proposals to study things, the federal government decides that's something worth looking into, and funding gets cut (simplified). Harvard has a lot of people doing pretty fancy research, so it makes sense they'd have a lot of grant proposals requiring fancy and expensive things. Complain to your state legislature for not focusing on making your local university a research university if you feel your area should be getting more of these grants. But let me guess, you probably voted for people who argued for lower taxes. Gee, I wonder what they found to cut...

And FWIW the federal government spends a bunch on a lot of small-town America. FEMA grants for emergency preparedness comes to mind. A higher percentage of populations of small-town America live off federal aid programs. Small-town America also sees more of its school funding from federal sources and grants.