The State of American Science Funding (...For the Next Five Minutes)
- sciart0
- Jul 23
- 2 min read
Excerpt to 1st link above: " Science in the United States is in turmoil. The Trump administration has threatened universities with impossible demands, canceled billions in grants and terminated contracts wholesale, proposed a new budget with dramatic cuts to science funding, and fired thousands of government employees at funding agencies.1
What happens now?
It seems dire at the moment, but much remains to be determined. A great deal depends on two questions: whether Congress is able to put its foot down via future appropriations and legislation, and whether courts backstop Congress by upholding the Impoundment Control Act, a 1974 law enacted in the aftermath of the Nixon presidency that places tight restrictions on when and how a presidential administration can refuse to spend allocated money.
In the immediate future, the most damaging aspect of the current chaos may not be the cancellation of grants per se, but the effects on personnel. In theory, grantmaking could be re-upped as early as this fall. However, even if funding is fully restored, it’s possible there won’t be sufficient government employees to even begin to handle the workload. Onerous immigration policies could mean that labs can’t even implement the work they had proposed.
It might take a few years to get back on course. By that point, scientific progress may have been stifled and derailed. Does that matter? Yes. When progress is at hand, even a few years of chaos and stalling can put our society on a different and lower course than the alternative. All the more reason to think carefully about the long-term effects of short-term policies."