Institutional vandalism is neither privatization nor creative destruction. It’s just cruelty masquerading as genius that plans to simply plead the necessary risk of endeavor when exposed as gratuitous incompetence. We may, within 10 years, see a newer, better NIH (or, preferably, cluster of baby NIHs) rise from the ashes. We may see a revitalized NSF and a whole slew of new institutions funding educaton research domestically and supporting the broader world through American aid programs. Maybe, maybe not.
But make no mistake: this is not a controlled burn. There is no plan, other than perhaps the wholly articulated belief that destruction wrought from chaos is a plan. This is a series of forest fires set by gleefull children with matches, wholly unable to even comprehend the risks they are taking on behalf of everyone else. We’ll probably get through to the other side, but for those of us who have been thinking about tail risk for a decade of Trump, the number of standard deviations between us and the unthinkable keeps getting smaller.
Economist Writing Every Day 
I’ve been wondering who is going to write the critique of DOGE from the perspective of Hayek, Burke, Chesterton, and James Scott
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Run down the list of Madisonian federalists, classical liberals, Burkean conservatives, public choice scholars…basically everyone who ever contributed to any attempt to have a thoughtful approach to the efficiency or constraint of government, and I am quite confident that the current administration is a waking nightmare: an extortive grift based in fear and fascism, all while waving a banner of small government efficiency. If you ever wanted to consider a thread in the multiverse where Gordon Tullock and Barry Goldwater end up members of what is labeled a “socialist resistance”, well here you are.
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