Reduce Spending on Non-Essential and Questionable Research
$3.8 Million in Savings in the First Year
Since passage of the stimulus bill in February of 2009, watchdogs and media outlets have identified countless examples of wasteful, unnecessarily duplicative, and outrageous expenditures. Unfortunately, most of these expenditures only come to light after the money has been spent. This is particularly true in the area of research grants. Examples of grants made with stimulus funds about which questions have been raised after the grant was awarded include: a study on why young adults use malt liquor and marijuana in combination ($389,357); the impact of alcohol on the “hookup” behavior of female college coeds ($219,000); studying whether mice become disoriented when they consume alcohol ($8,408); developing a program for "machine-generated humor" ($712,883); studying methamphetamines and the female rat sex drive ($28,900); studying the tension between privacy and features in online social networks like Facebook ($498,000); testing how to control private home appliances in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts from an off-site computer ($787,250); developing the next generation of football gloves ($150,000); examining the division of labor in ant colonies ($950,000); and studying the Icelandic Arctic environment in the Viking Age ($94,902). While we cannot recapture money that has already been spent, this proposal would reduce funding dollar-for-dollar at each agency that approved the grants described above.
