Barack Obama's fiscal-cliff nightmare is not over yet, leaving funding agencies in limbo.
Image: CHRIS KLEPONIS/AFP/Getty
Law-makers in Washington DC greeted the new year with a frantic deal meant to avert a fiscal crisis. But the bill that passed the Senate and the House in pre-dawn votes on 1 and 2 January keeps researchers on tenterhooks for at least another two months by delaying mandatory spending cuts that could threaten science funding.
The last-ditch effort aimed to stave off the effects of the ‘fiscal cliff’: a painful series of tax hikes and budget cuts, scheduled to take effect in 2013, that is meant to reduce the US budget deficit but could push the country’s weak economy back into recession. The cuts, known as the sequester, could shrink federal support for research and development (R&D) by US$57.5 billion over the next five years.
Rancorous last-minute negotiations yielded a tenuous agreement to raise taxes for the wealthy, but deferred decisions on the sequester — an across-the-board reduction of about 8% in nondefense discretionary spending, with at least 9% carved from defense — by two months. “The bill isn’t ideal,” says Eleanor Dehoney, vice-president of public policy at Research!America, a science-advocacy group based in Alexandria, Virginia. “But it does give advocates more time to convince policy-makers that cutting the US investment in R&D is counterproductive.”
Federal agencies such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation have not announced what cuts they would make in the event of a sequester, but many institutions have drawn up contingency plans in case there is a sudden plunge in government funding. Nancy Andrews, dean of the Duke University School of Medicine in Durham, North Carolina, says that the medical school may need to cut back on graduate admissions, freeze salaries and reduce faculty recruitments if the NIH takes a severe hit.
The two-month delay to the sequester is a complication for Andrews, who is wrestling with decisions on faculty retention and recruitment that must be made by mid-January. “If we need to spend more to help current faculty members maintain their research programs through funding gaps, it will be harder to provide start-up funding for new faculty members,” she says.
The delay means that law-makers will debate the sequester at the same time as they tackle the overall federal budget. The US Congress’s inability to agree on a 2013 budget last year led it to adopt a continuing resolution that allows the government to keep functioning at roughly 2012 funding levels. That resolution expires on 27 March. By then, the country will also have reached a cap on the amount of money that it can borrow.
This timing may increase the momentum behind big spending cuts, cautions Michael Lubell, director of public affairs for the American Physical Society in Washington DC. But it may also foster a more thorough discussion of which programs should be cut and by how much, he adds. Science is unlikely to emerge unscarred, says Lubell, but it may end up in better shape than it would have under the original sequestration plan. “That doesn’t mean it’s going to be wonderful,” he adds. “It means it will be less bad.”
This article is reproduced with permission from the magazine Nature. The article was first published on January 2, 2013.
See what we're tweeting about
14 Comments
Add CommentMs Ledford- Is it your opinion that the US can continue spending more than it is generating in revenues over the long term?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen we spend 40% more than we are generating doesn't it mean that almost all government spending will need dramatic cuts?
No it doesn't mean you need more cuts. Governments need money to provide services. America needs to raise the capital from those that can afford to provide it. From those who have prospered from the country should give a little back.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFrom a science perspective this is yet another proof of the concept that as people gain wealth they become more self centred and less conserned about others.
Crasher, Even if Democrats got all the tax increases they wanted it would only amount to a little less than 8% of the yearly deficit. There isn't enough money out there to support the spending levels we have, let alone the levels the Democrats want.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm sure you could afford to provide more. Why aren't you?
Yes I can afford to pay more.Yes I am willing to to do so. Won't help the US though, as I pay my tax in a different country, one that has free health care and no militay weapons in the hands of flaky citizens.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPerhaps the US could cut their paranoid defense budget and stop involving themselves in other peoples wars. Budget crisis solved.
The US and some citizens are just having a problem accepting the fact that they are no longer (or very shortly won't be) the worlds economic superpower.
Crasher, We have a history of getting involved in other peoples' wars. Sometimes with countries that disarm their citizens before going on to slaughter their own by the hundreds of thousands or even in the millions. Better the occasional "flaky" citizen than the occasional "flaky" madman dictator. One kills at most a handful (but only in gun-free zones) while the other can kill millions (but only in a gun free country).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd even if we had no defense budget, the deficit would merely be cut in half. But then who would defend countries that have little or no defense budget and whose citizens are not allowed to defend themselves?
I always love the anti-everything crowd endlessly squealing "we can't afford it", right up until the military budget comes in.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe can't afford to provide a cheaper, better healthcare system to our own citizens, but we have a blank check when it comes to wars in foreign countries?
hmmm perhaps you should examine some recent history...what country armed Saddam in Iraq, what country armed the Taliban in Afghanistan. And then what did that country do? You reap what you sow.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it"
(Edmund Burke)
Cool I'm in
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMost of Iraq's weapons came from the Soviet Union. They fielded T-62 and T-72 tanks, MiG and Sukhoi fighters, Hind helicopters, and Scud missiles.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs for the Taliban, you're confusing them with the mujaheddin. The US did arm some of them, but not all; money and arms flowed into Afghanistan from many nations, many of them Muslim and not at all friendly to the US. The Taliban didn't come to power until the mid-1990s when the former mujaheddin factions were fighting each other. Most of the weapons and funding came from Pakistan's ISI, though later the funding sources changed to primarily opium and logging exports (the country was basically deforested).
You should be aware of basic facts before you accuse others of not knowing theirs.
Crasher
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou seem to have very little knowledge of economics.
It appears that you advocate a 40% increase in US taxes. A significant problem with that approach is that it would lead to ever higher unemployment which would increase the need to raise taxes even further. You simply can not tax the supposedly wealthy enough to eliminate the current deficit. The only answer is to cut spending on entitlement programs for the aging population. Does it make sense as a society to spend $1M to extend someones life from 75 years to 78 years?
If the financial industry can create tens of trillions of dollars of financial derivatives out of thin air, why not the government?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA 5% tax on the market value of derivatives would erase the debt and fully fund Medicare and Social Security.
However, here's a solution for science funding. Fund only extraordinary research needs: travel to field areas, equipment, and so on. No more investigator salaries, fringe, or overhead. Ban the use of grant gathering in hiring, promotion or tenure decisions.
How about this: No CEO pay or stock dividends in any 12-month period where a company, or its subsidiaries, lays off workers. Bet that will provide a disincentive for increasing unemployment. How about a one-cent tax per share per laid off worker? Lay off 10,000 workers, that's $100 per share.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is an excellent development. We MUST figure out a way to stop our dependency on government, particularly on corrupt politicians that pass a bill to address our fiscal situation and make sure to include some serious pork in it, and turn to individuals and private enterprise to address out problems. Government should be relegated to basic services.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRodrigo Silveira.
Might I advise Ms Ledford and her magazine that what happens with this fiscal deal or indeed whatever the Congress or Gov of the USA does will not affect Science in any way shape or form.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt may affect research, funding, development. But it will NOT affect Science.