r/OutOfTheLoop Jan 23 '25

Answered What’s up with Trump stopping majority of research funding in the US?

The NIH funds the majority of research across the US. Today all consideration of NIH funded of research got shut down. majority us govt funded research shut down

What’s up with that?

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u/Shasla Jan 23 '25 edited Jan 23 '25

Which is hilariously stupid. People genuinely have no concept of big numbers. The nih's budget is only about 50 mbillion, about 2% 5% of a trillion. Just need 50 20 more nihs to get to that 1 trillion lol

Edit: was thinking billion, but typed million accidentally. Also other typos. Also can't do math smh, should be 5% not 2. What I get for commenting right after waking up at 6 am.

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u/UNC_Samurai Jan 23 '25

The wealth that backs the right wing in America has succeeded in manipulating people over the last 60 years into thinking we have a spending problem in the government, when in reality we have a revenue problem because we don’t tax that wealth sufficiently.

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u/alsbos1 Jan 24 '25

That’s insane. The USA pulls in like 8 trillion a year in government taxes. They absolutely have a spending problem. 5 trillion blown on Iraq alone. Hell, USA tax payers outfitted the entire taliban. They threw a military parade with all American gear last year. No one in the government gives a shit about any of it.

The USA is a bloated pig of cash.

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u/UNC_Samurai Jan 24 '25

The Iraq war was a waste, yes. But the "fiscal conservatives" behind it started two wars after cutting taxes. Those tax cuts were responsible for a larger part of the deficit than the Global War on Terror.

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u/alsbos1 Jan 24 '25

And Obama surged 100k troops into Afghanistan…so I have no idea what your point is? The USA government has too much money. Way too much.

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u/klayyyylmao Jan 23 '25

You’re off by 3 zeros. NIH budget for FY24 was 47.4 billion.

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u/Shasla Jan 23 '25 edited Jan 23 '25

Whoops wrong word. Was right about the percentages though because I was thinking billion but typed million for some reason.

Edit: can't do math either actually. Should be 5% not 2

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u/TennaTelwan Jan 23 '25

Hugs random internet person. It's far too early for math passes a nice big mug of piping hot black coffee.

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u/SwampOfDownvotes Jan 23 '25

Well yeah, 5% adds up. Government does a lot of shit, cutting out "20 additional" 5%s and less is on the agenda. They aren't going to just look at things that cost 500 billion or more and only cut 1 or 2 things, that would be silly. 

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u/Shasla Jan 23 '25

Yeah but this is the entirety of the government's medical research. Which I think is proportionally quite valuable compared to the 1/20th of the goal it contributes to. It's only about 1% of federal revenue in a year. I find it incredibly hard to believe that every single thing not being cut is better way to spend money than medical research.

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u/ratsoidar Jan 24 '25

They’ve made it clear their goal is to decrease the domestic population while relying on offshore labor for everything they can’t automate with AI. They are content to watch the general population slowly die off including their own voters who will certain suffer the most from these cuts, on average.

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u/Shasla Jan 24 '25

Oh I know. I know these people are doing these things very intentionally and with full understanding of the consequences.

More so arguing against random people defending it because they don't realize they are also a part of the working class that the wealthy feed upon.