RFK Jr. wants NIH's 47 billion budget cut to $27 billion: a ~40% cut. And he wants NIH’s 27 institutes and centers cut into just eight.

The proposal would reduce the more than $47 billion budget of the NIH to $27 billion — a roughly 40 percent cut. It would consolidate NIH’s 27 institutes and centers into just eight. Some of its institutes and centers would be eliminated, including the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities and the National Institute of Nursing Research.

There's a lot more horrible stuff in the article.

A Bluesky post

Folding 27 NIH institutes and centers down into 8, which is even worse than the rumored plan for 15, is catastrophic for American biomedical research. Completely insane.
https://subium.com/profile/davelevitan.bsky.social/post/3lmxuwuk6qc2j

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The brain drain is going to be crazy. If I was China or Europe I would start to make very inciting offers
- Have any right-wing podcasters or influences, etc come up with a non-insane effort how how this is good from their POV? Even the bullshit "cutting costs is good!" excuses ring hollow when you consider the fantastic ROI in funding scientific and medical research on such "woke" things as cancer cures.
  
  Have any right-wing podcasters or influences, etc come up with a non-insane effort how how this is good from their POV?
  Not sure, but I imagine it's the same cope like you mentioned. They'll write it off as good because it's defunding research they consider silly and woke
  
  If Starmer wasn’t a bloody ring-kisser, a Corbyn lead government would be rubbing their hands over free talent.
  Hell, even Canada should: you got the Ivy Leagues next door and I had a couple professors from Saskatchewan of all places at OSU, so the brain drain should be seamless.
  
  Maybe - as usual - I credit the right-wing with far too much sanity? Now I can imagine a "moderate" right-wing influencer saying...
  "Trump is saving money. Lots of money. And he's killing woke nonsense. This might surprise you but curing cancer is woke if the federal government is involved. Look, it's really, really expensive. So what Trump is doing is not just practical - it's great! Let the free market work on that stuff. Why do we have to pay for it!"
  
  It's simple. In the reactionary view government is inefficient, more government doing things is more communist and communism is bad and inefficient. Private industry is efficient, the markets effectively solve all problems better than government ever could. Thus by removing the public sector the invisible hand of the market will spur private companies to fill in what was needed and the wasteful government communist parts will be left behind while the innovation of capitalism will create better results for those who are deserving and have the money to pay.
  This is taken as an axiomatic law of reality. The one and only exception is the military and police.
  But more critically, the American reactionary is so alienated, so drenched in the sauce that they don't have a serious worldview, they don't even try to intellectualize their thinking, that is they don't have anything that even really tries to stand up to scrutiny or debate like some realists or classical Keynesian liberals might. They're not interested in honest debate, some are paid and know something is off but enjoy owning the libs so much they don't care, some have class interests reliant on deregulation, many just believe cutting taxes is in their interest and don't understand things like civic goods and projects and have been taught to be unable to connect the dots.
  So trying to debate many of them I've found is fruitless, they're not serious about having a logical worldview that can withstand critique, introspection, or real world developments that dispute it, etc, they just are after some more money, they have a religious zeal and conviction reinforced by group dynamics that require adherence to this, it's woven into their "comedy" and jokes they tell one another.
  It's very similar to say creationists who will just smirk back at you smugly no matter how much you dismantle their arguments, they just brush it off and laugh at you as believing lies built on lies built on lies because they dislike your sources of authority and choose their own, it doesn't matter, facts don't reach them because they're materially comfortable and believe acting in this way will bring them more comfort or certainly doesn't to their understanding hurt their comfort. Parenti called the propaganda effort writ large "inventing reality" and that's very apt because it's not just about manufacturing consent but about inventing a certain reality and maintaining it in the face of material reality.
  It's part of a culture of abhorring and detesting intellectualism of which introspection, critical thought are key parts which certainly keeps the hogs divorced from Marxist theory and other academic matters which is a definite intention. It focuses on the simple explanations. Things not working as expected? You could listen to an egg-head use all these complicated terms and math and charts or you could just accept it's being sabotaged by non-whites, by secret communist cabals, by satanists, by those who hate the country and that feeds into the fear-anger response so stoked and maintained in these people.

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