U.S. Debt Deal Could Dramatically Slash Science Funding in 2013
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By Eric Hand of Nature magazine
Scalpel or guillotine? Those are the possible fates in store for US science funding after Congress and the White House reached a deal to cut federal spending and raise the nation's self-imposed debt limit before a 2 August deadline.
The product of tumultuous negotiations, the deal largely spares science in the short term but puts a day of reckoning on the horizon: 2 January 2013. If politicians cannot agree on how to improve the government's fiscal outlook by then through targeted cuts and other means--the scalpel option--their failure will automatically trigger the guillotine: a deep cut applied across a range of expenditures, including research. In the worst case, the automatic cuts could mean shuttered laboratories and mass lay-offs at universities.
Whether or not that happens depends partly on a special Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, the 'super-committee', to be set up as part of the deal. The super-committee, which congressional leaders must appoint by 16 August, will be charged with finding ways of raising revenues or reducing the costs of entitlement programs such as health care and social security, which the government is legally required to fund. If the super-committee fails, the automatic triggers would force discretionary spending to fall under the indiscriminate blade of across-the-board cuts.
"Then there will be extraordinary pain," says Michael Lubell, director of public affairs for the American Physical Society in Washington DC. "And it will get worse in 2014."
The two-stage structure of the debt deal explains both the short-term reprieve and the long-term worry. The first set of agreed cuts, totaling US$917 billion, will be spread over 10 years, but two factors mitigate their effect. First, reductions to defense spending will account for a significant share of the cuts--meaning that other US agencies won't bear the entire burden. Second, the cuts are heavily loaded forward onto the 2014 fiscal year and beyond, in an apparent effort to shelter the current fragile economy. Only minimal cuts will be implemented in fiscal years 2012 and 2013.
In fact, the cap for overall discretionary spending that legislators will use in finishing the 2012 appropriations process is $29 billion higher than the cap that House Republicans have used for their budget proposals so far (see 'Fiscal tug-of-war'). This means that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) might yet escape cuts to its funding that previously seemed likely. The higher cap also leaves wiggle room for Senate legislators to restore pet projects, such as NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, which the House last month voted to cancel.
The second set of cuts, totaling at least $1.2 trillion, could inflict much deeper wounds. The task of selecting precisely how to make up that amount will fall to the super-committee, a group of six Democrats and six Republicans, who will have the power to look beyond discretionary funding to consider entitlement cuts and new revenue streams from taxes. The super-committee has until 23 November this year to formulate a plan, which will be put before Congress a month later. If the super-committee can't reach agreement, or if Congress won't approve its plan, the across-the-board $1.2-trillion cut will automatically kick in a year later (see 'Countdown to cuts').
Such an outcome would be catastrophic, says Lubell. According to his back-of-the-envelope calculation, the automatic cut would slash funding for science agencies by 11%, starting in 2013. For the Department of Energy's $5-billion Office of Science, even shutting down a national laboratory--for example Fermilab, the particle-physics laboratory in Batavia, Illinois, with its $300-million annual budget--would achieve only part of the mandated savings. Granting agencies such as the NIH and the National Science Foundation (NSF) would have to lower their grant-acceptance rates to single digits. The knock-on effect would be catastrophic for universities, which depend on grants to help cover post doctoral researchers and infrastructure costs. "Can universities make up that gap? Not a chance," says Barry Toiv, spokesman for the Association of American Universities, based in Washington DC, an advocate for the largest research universities.
The global cut would also wreak havoc with the 2013 appropriations process, which would begin with President Barack Obama's budget request in February 2012. In such a scenario, appropriators could play favorites among different science agencies, boosting some at the expense of others in anticipation of the looming cuts, says Lubell.
Science agencies pursuing basic research that both parties tend to support, such as the NIH, the NSF and the core program of the National Institute of Standards and Technology--could fare well. Basic research at the Department of Defense might also survive, as it offers little in the way of potential savings, being such a small piece of the overall defense pie.
But 'mission' agencies, such as NASA, or the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), where science is a large but ultimately ancillary activity, could suffer. Worst off would be programs supporting research that is controversial in the current Congress, says Patrick Clemins, director of the research and development budget program at the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington DC. This could spell trouble for climate-change research at NOAA and within NASA's Earth Science Division. The Department of Energy's applied energy and loan-guarantee programs could also be vulnerable, as some members of Congress see them as picking winners in a part of the economy that should be governed by the free market.
This is why science advocates are hoping that the make-up of the super-committee will favor the kind of negotiation that would head off across-the-board cuts. Toiv would like to see members selected from the Bowles-Simpson commission, which was appointed by Obama to study options for reducing the national debt. It emphasized infrastructure, education and basic research as important to the nation's long-term economic health. But Lubell expects the super-committee to be entrenched along partisan lines: entitlement reform would be off-limits for the Democrats, whereas new taxes would be anathema for Republican members. Refusing to compromise would enable both parties to pander to their traditional constituencies in the November 2012 general elections.
April Burke, president of Lewis-Burke Associates in Washington DC, a science-lobbying firm, is more sanguine, saying that an impasse would not necessarily trigger doomsday cuts. Congress, a slippery beast, has devised ways to avoid automatic triggers before. And the 2 January 2013 implementation of the mandated cuts is a political lifetime away. By then, the 2012 election could have changed the political stage, along with its players. The economy could improve--or get worse. And new rules could be written.
"I don't think we're looking at the full menu of what might happen then," she says. "I think there might be yet another reality."
This article is reproduced with permission from the magazine Nature. The article was first published on August 9, 2011.
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9 Comments
Add CommentI don't want to hear anyone who supported the Shuttle at 1.6 BILLION a mission complaining about cutbacks when that program stripped funding for 3 decades from actual 'science' research.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn theory I support a vigorous university research infrastructure. the reality, however, is that more money has meant the establishment of more deadwood. Extended projects (like the Space Shuttle)become a stew pot to feed inefficiencies
There are no cuts. There is only a decrease in the rate of increase.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDrafter: Have you ever heard of inflation? You have the same number of dollars but you can not buy the same things you used to with that money. Heard of the unnecessary Iraq war? One Tea Party man's ego and greed, a nation bankrupt.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUnfortunately this article just comes across as self interested whining on the part of the Academic elite. It's not OK to defend social programs but it is OK to preserve subsidies for academia.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMeanwhile most academic institutions (Sci Am most definitely included) continue to assist in hiding the overwhelming portion of federal RDT&E funding consumed by military spending in the hope their silence will buy a few handouts
scientific earthling: it's not just Iraq (and Afghanistan), but it's also the defense budget as a whole, as well as Social Security and Medicare.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe increases proposed are at a higher rate than the expected rate of inflation. If they stuck to the rate of inflation I'd be fine with that but they are doubling it which itself causes greater inflation. Just because I want to stay within a budget does not mean I'm for the Iraq war, I'd be very happy for our military to pull out of several countries.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thispokerplayer mentions "the fact that the US spends 38% more than it receives in revenue."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis may be true, but it is not true that "this means that unless there are tax increases ALL PROGRAMS will have to be cut by an average of 38%."
A good scientist (or engineer) specifies all variables when analyzing a problem. What timeframe are you referring? Should all programs be cut by 38% in 2012 (if taxes are not increased)? Or by 2020? Do you believe 38% will remain constant if their are no cuts? Increase or decrease?
Our debt is being used for propaganda to produce fear, just like 9/11 was used. I am not saying that we should not be concerned about our public debt, but we are very far from becoming Greece who does not even have their own currency or central bank (not to mention being the world's most prominent reserve currency and the world's ultimate safe haven--just look at US interest rates). Greece's net public debt per GDP is 142% (2010); United States' 65% (2010).
See the nice table on the right-hand side of the page ranking countries:
http://www.economywatch.com/economic-statistics/economic-indicators/General_Government_Net_Debt_Percentage_GDP/
The US deficit must definitely be lowered, but the best way to do this is by growing the economy. The economy is our greatest problem, not our debt (or deficit in the short term).
Fiscal austerity is not the solution. It has not helped Europe over the last year. It did not help the US (or world) in the 1930s. And it will not help us now.
Believe it or not, our government has actually been getting smaller over the last two years. Check the monthly unemployment statistics. While we are gaining jobs in the private sector (although not enough), government jobs are being lost. The increase in the deficit over the last three years is purely a result of our economy.
pokerplayer,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat's the problem with your thinking. A comparison to my personal world does not make economic sense. That's why the study of economics is separated into micro- and macroeconomics. The US government that has its own currency, levies taxes for its income, and represents 22% of the US economy is NOT A HOUSEHOLD OR A BUSINESS. Just one simple concept (among many): if a household cuts back it's spending, its income will not decrease as a result. This is not the case for the US government (or any government that taxes its employees and others who recieve goverment money (including Michele Bachmann and her husband who gets income from Medicaid and other benefits). The less it spends, the less income people earn (jobs lost), which means lower tax revenues for the government. There's also a mutliplier effect that must be considered.
We had debt and deficit problems after the enormous spending from Reagan and Bush (the elder), but less than a decade later, we were running surpluses. As James Carville once said, "It's the economy stupid." It was the economy that allowed us to run surpluses under Clinton (low unemployment & record tax revenues as a result).
Also, this is not "my economics." Study any macroeconomic textbook (even the freshwater, Chicago School economics texts) and there is agreement with this principle. Also, study the great depression. Until then, I am not going to educate you on basic economic concepts (that are neither from left or the right).
pokerplyer:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBTW, interest on our debt is very low (especially for newly issued debt). This debt is at fixed rates. It's almost free money. And as we saw this week demand for US Tsy notes and bonds is higher than ever. It's still the ultimate safe haven, even after a S&P downgrade. It's simple supply and demand. If you want to go invest in a communist country like China, go ahead. China will eventually faulter (or if you believe in communism, maybe you don't believe this) especially if we force them to allow it exchange rates to float (instead of using market manipulation -- do you believe in markets?). If we have a trade war, they lose, not us.