[ascotan]

this proposal is an extension of the WH crackdown on what it sees as misuse of USG funds for things that are deemed not in the best interests of the USG.

Among other things this proposal attempts to prevent:

1. prevention of DEI related grants

2. prevention of grants promoting anti-american ideologies

3. prevention of gain-of-function research (think covid-19)

4. prevention of ai-powered social media censorship research

5. prevention of FEMA dollars going to help undocumented immigrants

6. prevention of foreign aid dollars being spent in africa on gender ideology

It would but restrictions directly into the grant awards give strong tools to the USG to suspend the grant and prevent the money being dispersed via a subrecipient.

[Auracle]

Am I wrong for thinking “good” for a lot of those points? Many are either harmful (I still haven’t heard what we actually expect to gain from gain-of-function research that makes up for the potential cost) to absolute wastes of taxpayer dollars.

[DangitBobby]

You can agree with the stated goals and still disagree with the policy mechanism to achieve them. Indeed, much of the current administration's strategy appears to be to sane-wash the destruction of our scientific institutions while trotting out it's "goals" to non-critical observers. Of course, the true goals are what the policy actually accomplishes, which is to hollow out the capacity for competent dissent.