Give me a break! A University of Pittsburgh spokesperson just said that cutbacks in NIH grants will eliminate jobs for researchers and research assistants. The National Institutes of Health announced that the cutbacks will limit the funding for indirect costs to 15%. Fifteen percent. I can understand the frustration because those indirect costs have been a gravy train for universities.
One of Those Anecdotes
Called to redo research mandated in five-year intervals by the Pennsylvania legislature, A co-researcher and I approached the University of Pittsburgh and a former student, a professor there, to partner with us on the research. In the initial study, our university had charged the PA DEP 15% override, and I went into the meeting thinking 15% was reasonable, given that the university’s facilities were multipurpose, the electricity, janitor costs, and security were part of ongoing costs already covered. I was surprised when Pitt wanted 50%. Fifty percent. The Commonwealth would be required to cough up half of the projected $200,000 for the research, an amount that would have limited the thoroughness required because we could not hire the same number of assistants we had used five years earlier.
The DOGE Effect
What arguments can research institutes make in the context of cutbacks for indirect costs? Well, some could go outside to sing as DOGE protestors recently did.
I can understand the fright of losing one’s job and the desperate protests of federal workers fired from inefficient, wasteful, and corrupt agencies. But what lies behind the protests? Support for government waste and fraud? The desire (greed) to continue wasting tax money on overpaid federal jobs.
What, other than decades of lucrative override money, lies behind Pitt’s hyperbole that cutting back to 15% would be disastrous for medical research? Not only has the federal government grown obese, but the universities have also become fat with spending excesses.
DOGE is exposing more than wasteful, inefficient, and corrupt bureaucrats and bureaucracies. It’s exposing all those who sought to take advantage of seemingly unlimited funding.