At CMU, defense dollars total billions

CMU seems like the wrong target here. Somebody needs to fund research. I think what you really want is for Congress to give less money to DoD and more to NSF &etc. Professors will just chase the money like kids on a peewee soccer team after the ball, wherever it comes from. As do we all.

DoE might be good also, for climate work. (Though, keep in mind that a lot of nuclear weapons stuff is actually DoE.)

NIH is less useful, unless researchers want to pivot into biomed somehow.

Not sure what else there is.

As an alum, if the students don't love it, they can withdraw. Someone needs to foot the bill for research and education and CMU does not have a large endowment fund

> “It’s not money going to climate change. It’s not going to alleviating poverty. It’s not going to rebuild Pittsburgh. So, what is it going for?”

It is going for save Ukraine and eastern Europe from aggressive Russians.

It is going for save Taiwan from mainland China.

Well, it is going to help US allies to survive against rise of totalitarian regimes.