Complex Analysis, Simple Analysis, and Congressional Support for Perverse Sheaves

This quote encapsulates one of the great stories in the history of U.S. government funding (and legislative and others' skepticism of such funding):

"On April 9, 1975, Congressman Robert Michel brandished a list of new NSF grants on the floor of the House of Representatives and selected a few that he thought might represent a waste of the taxpayers’ money. One of them (on which I happened to be one of the investigators) was called “Studies in Complex Analysis.” Michel’s comment was, “ ‘Simple Analysis’ would, hopefully, be cheaper.” I shudder to think of what might happen if certain members of the current Congress discover that the NSF is supporting research on perverse sheaves."

You can see some more details in an old blog post from John Baez.