Imagine (or remember): you’re a grad student; you’ve struggled through your first two years juggling classes, teaching and research; you managed to get your committee together so that you could contend with three weeks of written then three hours of oral comprehensive exams. You synthesized your dissertation proposal and your written comps into something coherent, passed a dozen drafts back and forth with your advisor, and finally managed to navigate the FastLane website to get it submitted to the NSF before the deadline. In all likelihood, it was rejected, so you tried again the following year. One day you’re working at your computer when the lab phone rings, and you’re stunned to find that it’s your program officer telling you that your Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant has been funded. $20,000 over two years to support your field work in Bolivia! Some time later, you learn that the Chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space, and Technology is telling the world that your research in particular is a waste of taxpayer money.