Mike's Blog

We’re back, it’s FY26 now, aaaaaand we’re already behind.

The USG is once again open for business after 43 days (now the longest shutdown ever). Most staff are still digging out from the avalanche of emails that accumulated over that time. At the same time, hundreds of study sections (>400) have...

I’m writing this the week before the new fiscal year is scheduled to begin. The USG has its own unique way of telling time and the fiscal year always begins on October 1^st. In the absence of a full year’s budget which consists of twelve separate appropriation bills, Congress can...

As FY25 comes to a close, most people at NIH are simply hoping to catch their breath before we learn what awaits us in FY26. The budget is (as typical) still pretty murky. The president has submitted a budget request which included an overall 40% reduction in total NIH funding...

Fiscal year 2025 is painfully but thankfully coming to a close in the next couple of months. As I’ve remarked to staff, when bad things happen and someone says, “I’ve seen worse,” hopefully this will be their last new ‘worse’ benchmark. Typically, around this time, we are in mop up...

Advice from the Daily Stoic.

In a past geological era (during my college days), I had the opportunity to drive across the country (multiple times). At the time, there were no ATMs, cell phones, or GPS. I made the trek with only a big wad of cash...