5 ms·

It’s also revealing the way this move is being marketed by universities. This certainly isn’t the first time HHS has raised concerns about the magnitude of indi

It’s also revealing the way this move is being marketed by universities. This certainly isn’t the first time HHS has raised concerns about the magnitude of indirect costs. Obama’s HHS also tried to reduce indirect costs: https://archive.ph/2025.01.09-171418/https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2013/03/17/harvard-mit-and-other-research-schools-thwart-obama-administration-effort-cap-overhead-payments/Nk5PT0Mc8MQZihFVNs5gNK/story.html https://archive.ph/2025.01.09-171418/https://www.bostonglobe...

matthewdgreen 2y ago
There's nothing revealing about it. The article you posted talks about capping things around 40 or 50%, or 95% of current funding. Not 15%, which will bankrupt those schools. It's an example of how you can take something that's true, put it out of context, and be completely wrong.
- rayiner 2y ago
  The 40-50% isn’t what the Obama administration proposed. The article says the administration didn’t propose a specific number. The point is that there’s clearly a problem here that isn’t something Trump is making up.
  - matthewdgreen 2y ago
    One of the common moves I’ve seen with Trump and particularly his defenders is to take an issue that’s real, then convert it into a weapon. So imagine my dog is overweight and needs to go on a bit of a diet: well, what if we took that same dog and reduced its calorie intake by 75% until it starved to death. Then while I’m standing over the corpse, I explain to you that “this isn’t something I was making up, there was a real problem there.” Even if, against all odds, you really are in favor of reforming things, killing a bunch of dogs pretty much guarantees a good-faith conversation can never happen. At some point you just need to decide if you’re on the side of truth or bullshit.
    - rayiner 2y ago
      That’s just a roundabout way of saying you disagree with us about how to solve the issue, and assign a different relative valuation to the outcome where the process-oriented careful approach fails to achieve any change. You’re welcome to do that, but that’s just living in a democracy. E.g. Obama promised sunlight and reforming the intelligence community. But in the end he didn’t do anything because he trusted the institutions and processes too much. So we voted for Tulsi to take a chain saw to the CIA.
      - selimthegrim 2y ago
        Tulsi is an ideological tool of BJP/RSS/VHP. Who knows how many people she is going to pawn the family jewels to.
        rayiner 2y ago
        Tulsi is America First, just like BJP is India First. That makes her a natural antagonist of Liberal Internationalism and Islamic Global Socialism. But I have seen no evidence to make me doubt her fierce nationalistic loyalty to the U.S.
        selimthegrim 2y ago
        I see radical Islamic terrorism (TM) wasn’t marked down at cliché Walmart so you stopped by the mix and match barrel next to the DVDs on the way out. Maybe rootless cosmopolitanism will be on sale next time since its trademark expired along with Mickey Mouse’s.
        rayiner 2y ago
        Did I hallucinate that islamic socialism that was a boot on Bangladesh’s neck for decades? Islamic socialism was the dominant ideology in the islamic world among the elites, and still is among the diaspora. It’s real—it has a wikipedia page! Regardless, I wasn’t using the term as a pejorative. What Islam, socialism, and liberal internationalism have in common is that they’re inherently cross-national, universal ideologies. That puts them in conflict with strong nationalism. Tulsi is an american nationalist. For example she was okay with Assad, because she (correctly) felt Assad wasn’t a threat to america, was keeping a lid on Al Qaeda, and didn’t care about “human rights” in Syria. That view is just american nationalism. But it pisses off liberal internationalists and muslim socialists. Because their own outlook is universalizing, they assume her support for keeping Assad in place must indicate support for Assad’s policies and ideas.

matthewdgreen 2y ago

There's nothing revealing about it. The article you posted talks about capping things around 40 or 50%, or 95% of current funding. Not 15%, which will bankrupt those schools. It's an example of how you can take something that's true, put it out of context, and be completely wrong.

rayiner 2y ago
The 40-50% isn’t what the Obama administration proposed. The article says the administration didn’t propose a specific number. The point is that there’s clearly a problem here that isn’t something Trump is making up.
- matthewdgreen 2y ago
  One of the common moves I’ve seen with Trump and particularly his defenders is to take an issue that’s real, then convert it into a weapon. So imagine my dog is overweight and needs to go on a bit of a diet: well, what if we took that same dog and reduced its calorie intake by 75% until it starved to death. Then while I’m standing over the corpse, I explain to you that “this isn’t something I was making up, there was a real problem there.” Even if, against all odds, you really are in favor of reforming things, killing a bunch of dogs pretty much guarantees a good-faith conversation can never happen. At some point you just need to decide if you’re on the side of truth or bullshit.
  - rayiner 2y ago
    That’s just a roundabout way of saying you disagree with us about how to solve the issue, and assign a different relative valuation to the outcome where the process-oriented careful approach fails to achieve any change. You’re welcome to do that, but that’s just living in a democracy. E.g. Obama promised sunlight and reforming the intelligence community. But in the end he didn’t do anything because he trusted the institutions and processes too much. So we voted for Tulsi to take a chain saw to the CIA.
    - selimthegrim 2y ago
      Tulsi is an ideological tool of BJP/RSS/VHP. Who knows how many people she is going to pawn the family jewels to.
      - rayiner 2y ago
        Tulsi is America First, just like BJP is India First. That makes her a natural antagonist of Liberal Internationalism and Islamic Global Socialism. But I have seen no evidence to make me doubt her fierce nationalistic loyalty to the U.S.
        selimthegrim 2y ago
        I see radical Islamic terrorism (TM) wasn’t marked down at cliché Walmart so you stopped by the mix and match barrel next to the DVDs on the way out. Maybe rootless cosmopolitanism will be on sale next time since its trademark expired along with Mickey Mouse’s.
        rayiner 2y ago
        Did I hallucinate that islamic socialism that was a boot on Bangladesh’s neck for decades? Islamic socialism was the dominant ideology in the islamic world among the elites, and still is among the diaspora. It’s real—it has a wikipedia page! Regardless, I wasn’t using the term as a pejorative. What Islam, socialism, and liberal internationalism have in common is that they’re inherently cross-national, universal ideologies. That puts them in conflict with strong nationalism. Tulsi is an american nationalist. For example she was okay with Assad, because she (correctly) felt Assad wasn’t a threat to america, was keeping a lid on Al Qaeda, and didn’t care about “human rights” in Syria. That view is just american nationalism. But it pisses off liberal internationalists and muslim socialists. Because their own outlook is universalizing, they assume her support for keeping Assad in place must indicate support for Assad’s policies and ideas.