Those are fair questions! My answer to the first one is in three parts:

1. In absolute terms, the amount of money we're talking about (e.g. NSF+NIH) is a drop in the bucket compared to $2T; it's been well-covered elsewhere, but scientific research funding simply isn't a significant contributor to the federal budget (and its deficit). It's a rounding error next to defense, social security, medicare, and medicaid.

2. Basic scientific research is an investment in our grandchildren's lives and health, and one that (as described in the article) historically has resulted in a very good rate of financial return.

3. When trying to cut costs, it is important not to be penny-wise and pound-foolish. These decisions are difficult, and if we want to have a hard look at what science gets funded, that's fine... but we need to do that in some kind of organized, serious, and systematic way, and that process absolutely has to involve the people doing the work at some level, as well as (ideally) other stakeholders (e.g. the people who might be affected by whatever the research would be accomplishing). A chainsaw is not the right tool for that job.

As to the second question, about priorities and agendas, this one's a bit trickier. First of all, let's be clear: we are not seeing a "steering" of research funding. What we are seeing is more of a "indiscriminate slashing" based on truly nonsensical and heavily politicized grounds:
- https://www.npr.org/2025/02/13/nx-s1-5295043/sen-ted-cruzs-l...
- https://www.science.org/content/article/nsf-reexamines-exist...

Besides funding of new research grants, the bigger impact is actually in education, training, and workforce development. Training grants are being badly affected, and because of the threats to indirect costs and the general uncertainty about future research funding levels, many universities are dramatically decreasing their number of PhD admissions this year, or eliminating them altogether. I also know of several programs aimed at scientific workforce development that are on the chopping block, and we are worried about our existing students losing their funding mid-way through their PhDs. Again, that's not "steering", unless you mean "steering" in the sense of "steering American science off a cliff". We are, in the most literal possible sense, eating our seed corn. I'm reminded of that reservoir in California that was recently ordered to dump a bunch of water, which means that the farmers in that part of the state won't have as much as they are going to need this summer. That's what is happening in science right now, as we speak.

Secondly, I don't quite know how to say this, but it's not really the executive's job to decide which grants get funded. That's up to the scientific and programmatic leadership at funding agencies, together with the existing and well-defined scientific peer review process. We did indeed just have an election, but our system of government is very much not a dictatorship. This is literally part of why Congress set up dedicated agencies to administer scientific and medical research; those projects need to persist beyond any single election and need to be insulated somewhat from day-to-day politics. Congress making those funding decisions was also an expression of democracy in action.

Also, this is why funding agencies are staffed by career civil servants with domain expertise, and why funding agencies have extremely well-documented and carefully designed peer review processes in place, and why scientists from all over the country give up lots of time to participate in those processes several times per year. Undermining all of this process and structure --- which is in place to try and mitigate biases and ensure as much objectivity as is possible in an inherently subjective world --- is one of the best ways I can imagine to ensure that government-funded research becomes more ideologically-driven, not less.

Anyway, that's my two cents!