Since the Congress was unable to complete, or get the President to sign, appropriations bills by October 1, the U.S. has been living under what is called a “continuing resolution”. That means that every now and then, the Congress votes to fund the government at last year’s levels while they try to complete the very late budget process. As of a few days ago, a so-called “omnibus” bill has been rolling through Congress. An omnibus bill is when you take all the separate appropriations bills (Energy and Water, Defense, etc.) and roll them into one huge bill. Congress tries to pass it, the President signs it, and we have a budget. The House passed their version of that bill yesterday, and the outlook is very grim indeed.
Until this omnibus bill, science was doing well. Both parties in Congress have given strong support to increasing basic research funding, a move long suggested by industry, educators, and researchers alike. The need to compete in a global economy requires the U.S. to maintain leadership in education and workforce training, and basic research provides many means by which that can happen. Science asks and answers fundamental questions about the universe, and in doing so grows the body of basic human knowledge about the world. Science inspires our youth to pursue research and technical careers; many come for the science, but leave to work in business, technology, writing, even the clergy. Science pushes technology with its tough questions, and sometimes that leads to spin-offs that change the world (the world wide web) or save a life (cancer treatment with particle accelerators).
The future of science in this nation is now threatened by the omnibus bill. As reported in many sources today, the omnibus bill cuts in half the proposed increase for the Office of Science. In 2007, the office got $3.8 billion, a small increase over the historically flat budget of that body. This year, the budget was to grow to $4.5 billion; in fact, both the President, the House, and Senate all wanted this. The President asked for it, the House and Senate had almost the same number in their appropriations bills, and everything seems on track until the omnibus. It proposes to increase only to $4.05 billion.
Some programs suffer more than others. Speaking only for my own field of physics, the neutrino program at Fermilab is gravely threatened (with needed upgrades cut to zero funding in this bill); the U.S. drops out of ITER (again, by zeroing the budget for that program), an international fusion reactor program to which the U.S. had committed; and research and development funding for building a future high-energy electron-positron collider is cut from $45 million (proposed) to $15 million.
What’s the problem, you ask? It’s just a few programs, right? Not that simple. You see, it boils down to people. There are only so many people who can build a high-power neutrino beam, or dream up a fusion research reactor the height of a cruise ship, or tackle the daunting challenge of building a collider to take us to the Terascale. When you say you’re going to invest in those programs, you usually have to split people between an existing project and the new one. Part of their salary is paid from each pot, but neither can totally afford that person. When you cut, say, collider R&D from $45 million to $15 million three months into the new fiscal year, you’ve basically already spent the money you’d planned to spend on salaries and equipment. Thanks to the omnibus, you are faced with either laying off people or giving up the science. You cannot afford both, and in some cases you can afford neither.
No money, no people. No people, no science. It’s that simple. Science doesn’t do itself. It takes talented and dedicated engineers and researchers to plan, build, and execute these projects. Projects are the core of the scientific endeavor, and without them we cannot concentrate enough people and resources to tackle the hard questions facing modern physics and all of modern science. Cut the projects, and you cut the chance to seize real scientific opportunities. No money, no projects, no people, no discoveries.
It is a feedback loop. The science of the yesterday inspires the next generation of experiment, and those experiments entice a whole generation of young minds to rise through the educational process so that they can lead those great experiments into the future. Young minds are seized by the excitement of finding extra dimensions of space, of understanding why 85% of the universe’s mass is invisible, of teasing the elusive origin of all mass out of the abstract art of high energy particle collisions. If we cannot sustain and grow the commitment to the science program, what is there to inspire and educate the next generation?
Write your Senators. Write all Senators with whom you have any connection. Do it now, for they debate the bill on Wednesday! Tell them they need to restore the promise of an opportunity to harvest the great scientific crop planted by the last generation of scientists. Remind them that great science makes a great nation, that a national program – a national priority – for science is critical to keep this nation afloat in a sea of competing nations. Ask them to fulfill the commitment they made in their bi-partisan appropriations bills, a commitment suddenly forgotten in that all-or-nothing grab bag known as the Omnibus.
2 thoughts on “Science Budget Disasters”
Perhaps the 4.05 billion was only a typo and MEANT to be 4.5 billion. We should let them know about the mistake!
I wish things were so straight-forward. One thing is clear: if this is one mistake, it probably one among thousands. Let’s just hope that a pile of letters claiming Congress screwed up the national science program stands out above all the other complaining everybody else is probably doing.