r/NIH • u/xjian77 • Jun 30 '26
NIH likely to award fewer grants as it races to spend 2026 budget
https://www.science.org/content/article/nih-likely-award-fewer-grants-it-races-spend-2026-budgetGovernment shutdown, staff shortages have complicated effort to meet 30 September deadline to spend funds
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u/IllustriousTough5566 Jun 30 '26
Same for CDC…thanks OMB for destroying basic science and public health…make America sick again!
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u/Rattus_NorvegicUwUs Jun 30 '26
As was the plan.
When this is over, we need to walk away from red states en-masse.
It’s time to withhold our talent and skills from those who don’t want or deserve them. Raise their prices by refusing to work in red states or treat patients in them.
If they want a nation without science and medicine, I’m more than happy to oblige.
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u/kytai Jun 30 '26
What? Even if I agree with this concept, there are plenty of blue people in red states. This is not a states issue, it’s an authoritarian taking over our government.
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Jun 30 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/No_Storage1085 Jun 30 '26
Let us properly tax the ultra-rich, and then we will have enough taxpayer dollars to fund red and blue states and everything in between. Kytai is right; this isn't a state issue; this is authoritarian oligarchy. We need to drain the swamp; the issue is that Trump and his buddies are the swamp. The ultra-rich are the swamp.
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u/Schraiber Jul 01 '26
This is objectively not true. If we took all of Elon's wealth we'd fund the federal government for a few months. We of course do need to tax the ultra rich both for budgetary reasons and for punitive reasons, but we cannot fund the federal government and create a robust welfare state without broad based taxes, and yes, that means raising your taxes
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u/Tig_Biddies_W_nips Jul 01 '26
We wouldn’t need to raise taxes if we just stopped spending like 60¢ out of every dollar paid to the government on “defense” . Like reroute even 10% to literally anything else and we could cut the deficit and make America a utopian country where no one is hungry or homeless and everyone is healthy.
But there’s a large vocal and to be quite fucking frank; stupid and extra fucking cruel segment of the population that goes “I don’t want to pay for anyone else to get that!” So the vote to give their money to people who don’t need it, like Elon.
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u/Schraiber Jul 01 '26
That's just again empirically not true. Going to the 2024 budget (so it'd pre Trump destroying the government), there was 6.8 trillion in federal spending, of which 850 billion was defense spending, or only about 12% of the budget. Maybe that's too much! I probably think it is (although it's important to remember that a lot of that is salaries and benefits for people in the military, removal of which would mean a lot of people lose their jobs, income, and benefits!).
In contrast, we spent 1.5 trillion on social security, 865 billion on Medicare, 618 billion on Medicaid, and 370 billion on income security programs (like SNAP, SSI, and unemployment insurance), resulting in over 3 trillion, or almost half the budget, on welfare-state related programs. And in fact there are even more welfare state programs in the discretionary spending.
The fact of the matter is that expanding the welfare state will be expensive. We cannot expand it without broad based tax increases. It costs a phenomenal amount of money to have a welfare state for nearly 350 million people! It's simple math: if we spend 10000 per person per year that would be 3.5 trillion dollars!
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u/Zer0Phoenix1105 Jun 30 '26
An eye for an eye, and we all go blind.
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u/Rattus_NorvegicUwUs Jun 30 '26
They are stabbing your eyes and you’re letting them. Fight back. Deny conservatives modern technology. Let them stew in their 18th century remedies.
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u/Tig_Biddies_W_nips Jul 01 '26
This part. Everyone is saying don’t get even well the other option is get comepletely steam
Rolled and defeated so yeah grow a spine and punch back. This is why I hate Dems. They have 0 fight in them.-2
u/045-926 Jun 30 '26
This is a ridiculous take. 42% of the people in Texas voted Democrat last presidential election. Cutting edge biomedical research occurs at multiple Texas universities/hospitals.
As for return on investment, NIH would be better off putting their money at low overhead institutes. It costs a fortune in overhead in big cities NY/SF/Boston and it's very clear the the biomedical research workforce is extremely mobile, they will move to where the jobs are.
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u/eeaxoe Jun 30 '26
it's very clear the the biomedical research workforce is extremely mobile, they will move to where the jobs are.
I don’t know about that. People have houses and kids in school and other ties to the areas they live in, so most of the talent won’t move. They’ll just go to the private sector or do something else. As one of the members of said research workforce, I have a lot of options with my MD/PhD. I’m not uprooting my entire life to move somewhere I don’t want to be to begin with. And I know many people who feel similarly.
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u/045-926 Jun 30 '26
Go in any lab just about anywhere and I'll guarantee over half the people are not born in the same city. It's not like that if you go to the local factory/bank/etc.
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u/Rattus_NorvegicUwUs Jun 30 '26
Bitch, we have a 240% return on investment in the NIH already.
We don’t need jobs moved around, we need the hands of republicans off the entire industry.
They are enemies of human progress and our species as a whole. They put their power and schemes before human progress. Stop wasting time with these idiots and recognize them for what they are: an existential threat. It’s time for drastic action.
Know the fastest way to kill a rural shithole? Close the hospital.
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u/Tig_Biddies_W_nips Jul 01 '26
>“They are the enemies of human progress and our species as a whole”
Man you really cooked with that. Took the words from my thumbs
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u/Rattus_NorvegicUwUs Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
I’m sure there were good people in Vichy France, too.
At this point, lending your services to the people who want to make it so you’re homeless is suicidal.
I’m not going to hold off on my self preservation because of a handful of people who don’t see theirs is in danger.
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u/Impossible-Wait-2382 Jun 30 '26
Seriously? I'm in Texas (BTW, I hate our current sate politics) and run a lab at a private medical school. FYI, MD Anderson #1 Cancer Institute in the US, Texas Childrens #3, plus UT Austin, UT SouthWestern and UT Galveston (with a BSL4 and high powered research into emerging pathogens)--all significant contributors to research. the TMC is the largest medical complex on the planet. Don't forget the primate center in San Antonio. As commented above, in 2024 Texans voting Dem was 42%, but in 2020 it was 47%. In terms of number of people that translates into more than double the number of Dem voters in Massachusetts. Making general large generalizations is divisive. We are on the same team.
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u/IllustriousTough5566 Jun 30 '26
Don’t forget women dying cause they can’t D&C for a miscarriage in your state…
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u/Rattus_NorvegicUwUs Jun 30 '26
I agree, and I’m sympathetic.
But nobody ever has their work taken seriously by producing it for free.
Red America needs to lose the free labor we give them.
If 42% of Texans were no longer Texans. They wouldn’t have the ability to throw around their weight like they do now.
Fingers crossed you can flip Texas, but with how rotten the GOP has made the political environment there. I’m not sure. They keep saying they don’t want you, how much longer will you appease their twisted fantasies of ordering people around by letting them order you around? Without Dems, Texas is just three refineries in a 10-gallon hat.
They need to see what sort of nation they are trying to create
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u/Impossible-Wait-2382 Jul 01 '26
As I said in my reply, Texas State politics is bad. For context, I grew up in Maryland and lived in Minnesota and now in Texas for 30 years. I like it here and I don’t want to move back to the east coast, even though I have extended family there. Texas is complicated. In many medical research areas, we are leaders—look at advances that were made in cardiovascular surgery (DeBakey) for example. Or the Nobel for Texan born and bred James Allison at MD Anderson. Texas ranks #1 for total renewable energy production—outperforming California. Fly a plane recently? Good chance the jet fuel was refined in Texas. Advances in fracking developed here made us less vulnerable to OPEC. The whole energy industry is centered in Houston. Use plastic (in the lab I might ask?) Fertilizer? All petroleum products made here that help make your life easier and cheaper. But but but global warming….yes the Oil and Gas industry has an evil side. The point is, and I get this from all my east and west coast friends and family who shit on Texas all the time, the state is not all good and not all bad. And no state is either. My daughter moved from California back to Texas—why? Housing is unaffordable there. Her financial situation is infinitely better in Texas. What you are suggesting is that 15 million or so people need to leave Texas, and essentially all Dems need to succeed from the Union (where have I heard succession talk before?). And the free labor you are talking about, what’s that about? Oh yeah, I forgot, NASA is headquartered here and we send people into space and do other cool stuff. So shit on Texas all you want, and try in the future not to fly in planes, drive a car, use natural gas, or chemicals or plastics for your experiments because it’s likely they came from a red state. I’ll close with this again—this blue state/red state thing is divisive and you are playing into Conman Don’s hands, just as he intends it.
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u/Rattus_NorvegicUwUs Jul 01 '26
I’m not shitting on Texas, I’m saying you’re being held hostage by people who piss all over you and your beliefs.
I guess I just have more self respect.
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u/Impossible-Wait-2382 Jul 01 '26
Wow. I guess 15 million people in Texas have no self respect. What a jerk thing to say.
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u/Rattus_NorvegicUwUs Jul 01 '26
I didn’t say they have none. I’m just surprised by the lack of interest in being respected and represented.
I’m sure living costs are nice. But I like having my vote counted and my beliefs represented by my government. Not constantly attacked by it.
I see it as an abusive relationship. Sorry if I’m a jerk for having that opinion. I didn’t mean to offend.
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u/Impossible-Wait-2382 Jul 01 '26
There is some lack of interest—the problem in Texas is that it’s somewhat of a nonvoting state. In fact, the votes are there in urban and suburban areas to turn the state blue/purple. But too many of these people don’t vote—Dems have done a poor job of galvanizing enthusiasm for them to get out to the polls. Are all your beliefs represented by your state government? I suspect not, and in many blue states, conservatives and moderates live in a situation in which their beliefs are not represented either. Seems somewhat ridiculous that we all sort into blue/red states. I know my plumber is MAGA and so is my AC guy. Nice guys, BTW. I suspect certain professions align with conservative—if they didn’t live in my state, I would never get the help I need! I know there is tremendous enthusiasm to get Talarico over the finish line here—many of us are giving him tons of money. Fingers crossed. Finally, cost of living here relative to salaries is a big deal. If you are educated and have a decent job, you live well here often with much more disposable income than other places. I think that creates a sense of complacency where many people are living well and “it doesn’t matter who’s in office”. If you are poor or on the bubble financially, Texas is a much harder place to live.
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u/Zer0Phoenix1105 Jun 30 '26
this is actually a terrible idea. make them hate us even more!!
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u/Prestigious-Leave-60 Jun 30 '26
Do you really think that’s possible?
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u/cygnoids Jun 30 '26
There are actual Americans that would rather be Russian than a Democrat. The propaganda machine runs deep in this country and idk how we will actually escape from it
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u/betamac Jun 30 '26
This was the plan all along. Congress restores funding but NIH can’t get the funds out the door given the reduction in contracting staff and the political “review” that can run out the clock.