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I haven’t written very much about the current state of politics lately, not just because President Trump makes me angry & unhappy, but also because the deadlock in Washington (and precipitous national decline) make me sad and anxious. I would like to continue this precedent: paying breathless attention to all of Trump’s stunts and bullying just make him stronger (although I do think it is worth noting that he has been signing Bibles as though he were the author–and his devout Christian followers absolutely love it!). However, the latest enormities fall in the realm of policy and planning, so let’s take a look at the proposed 2020 Discretionary budget which was released by the White House yesterday. Predictably, this budget delivers slight funding increases to the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security, while stripping safety net and environmental programs fairly drastically. I suppose this is not unexpected under any Republican president, even one such as this one, (although it raises eyebrows after the colossal tax giveaway to the rich). However, what truly raises eyebrows in the budget are the appalling cuts to scientific and medical research. Here are the actual numbers:
Proposed Discretionary Budget Changes
All dollar amounts are in billions.
|
Department Or Agency
|
2019 Budget (Estimate)
|
2020 Request
|
$ change
|
% change
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Defense1 | $685.0 | $718.3 | $33.4 | +5% |
| Veterans Affairs | $86.6 | $93.1 | $6.5 | +8% |
| Health and Human Services | $101.7 | $89.6 | -$12.1 | -12% |
| Education | $70.5 | $62.0 | -$8.5 | -12% |
| Homeland Security | $48.1 | $51.7 | $3.6 | +7% |
| Housing and Urban Development | ||||
| HUD gross total (excluding receipts) | $52.7 | $44.1 | -$8.6 | -16% |
| HUD receipts | -$9.3 | -$6.5 | $2.8 | -30% |
| State Department and other international programs2 | $55.8 | $42.8 | -$13.0 | -23% |
| Energy | $35.5 | $31.7 | -$3.8 | -11% |
| National Nuclear Security Administration | $15.1 | $16.5 | $1.3 | 9% |
| Other Energy | $20.4 | $15.2 | -$5.2 | -25% |
| NASA | $20.7 | $21.0 | $0.3 | +1% |
| Justice | $29.9 | $29.2 | -$0.7 | -2% |
| Agriculture | $24.4 | $20.8 | -$3.6 | -15% |
| Interior | $14.0 | $12.5 | -$1.5 | -11% |
| Commerce3 | $12.3 | $12.3 | * | <1% |
| Labor | $12.1 | $10.9 | -$1.2 | -10% |
| Transportation | $27.3 | $21.4 | -$5.9 | -22% |
| Treasury | $12.9 | $13.1 | $0.2 | +2% |
| Social Security Administration | $10.5 | $10.1 | -$0.4 | -4% |
| National Science Foundation | $7.8 | $7.1 | -$0.7 | -9% |
| Environmental Protection Agency | $8.8 | $6.1 | -$2.8 | -31% |
| Army Corps of Engineers | $7.0 | $4.8 | -$2.2 | -31% |
| Small Business Administration | $0.7 | $0.7 | * | -5% |
| Other agencies | $21.3 | $19.1 | -$2.1 | -10% |
Notes
* $50 million or less
1. Includes $9.2 billion for emergency border security and hurricane recovery funding
2. Includes funding for the State Department, U.S. Agency for International Development, Treasury international programs and 12 international agencies
3. Appropriations for 2019 are incomplete.
Source: White House
Credit: Alyson Hurt/NPR
I guess Kudos for very slightly increasing the NASA budget (although even there, there is apparently no money for the new space telescope) but otherwise this proposal contains a lot to be angry about. I suspect you will find your own sources of fury in this spreadsheet (although please remember that this budget will never pass the House), but what jumps out at me are the substantial cuts to the National Science Foundation. Additionally, buried in that Health and Human Services number is a $4.5 Billion (11%) cut to the National Institute for Health, the agency which works to prevent pandemics, eradicate communicable disease, spearhead general research into life saving medicine, and generally keep Americans alive! Not only do Federal science dollars stave off the plague, they support blue-sky research which will lead to the next wave of innovations, and technological breakthroughs. What the U.S. Federal Government spent for scientific research in the past has made today’s most prominent, important (and lucrative) companies a possibility.
To use an overused metaphor, cutting these numbers is like not buying seed for next year’s crops. Additionally we are counting on fundamental research to counteract the impact expected from climate change, agricultural upheaval, forest loss, and energy problems (although, all of those problem will, of course, be exacerbated by other cuts in this budget).
Beyond scientists, environmentalists, and people who would like to see humankind survive into the future, there is another group that should perhaps be angry about this budget: Republican budget hawks. For all of its deep cuts and raw lack of appeal, this budget still blows up the deficit by 40% over the next 10 years, (from $22 trillion to $31 trillion). If President Obama had released this budget proposal (if he had been bitten by a rabid dog or a radioactive Ed Meese or something) I have a feeling that Republicans would have flown into apoplectic rage about the proposed deficit spending.
We will keep an eye on this budget. The 2019 Trump budget proposal was similarly problematic and Republican legislators simply ignored it and passed nice budget raises for the research arms of the government (which Trump duly signed, either because he did not care or did not notice). Yet a budget proposal reveals the priorities and moral choices of its creators, and this budget is blind to the needs of the future in almost every conceivable way.
So, the super massive ulti-mega-omnibus funding bill passed today (despite a last-minute executive tantrum) and the bill is…good? This goes against all of the doom-and-gloom scenarios which dominate the news (and this blog), and it is unpalatable to praise any product from the 115th Congress of the United States of America, but, despite the president’s recommendation for massive cuts to fundamental scientific inquiry, Congress coughed up a LOT of new money for science.
I know you are all smart, so let’s get straight to the numbers. For its annual budget, the NIH received 3 billion dollars more than last year (an 8.7 % increase). The National Science Foundation got a $295 million budget raise (3.9 % increase). The USGS received a $63 million budget (6%) expansion, while Congress increased the budget of the NOAA by $234 million (4%) to $5.9 billion. The Department of Energy received a whopping 16 percent raise of $868 million dollars: their annual budget is now $6.26 billion (obvs. we need shiny new nuclear weapons…but maybe there is some money for fundamental nuclear research in there too). Even the EPA kept the same budget as last year and experienced no cuts.
Best of all NASA gets a much-needed lift. To quote The Atlantic (which was the source of these numbers):
Nasa will receive $20.7 billion, $1.1 billion more than the previous year. The space agency’s science programs will increase by about 8 percent to $6.2 billion and its planetary-science program, in particular, by 21 percent, to $2.2 billion.
Of course, the biggest slice of the pie goes to the military, however a lot of Defense Department money ends up going to research too… although I would be happier if, instead of building manned aircraft appropriate for the Cold War, they spent more money on blue sky research and moonshot scifi stuff like wormholes, grasers, super robots, and railguns. But that research (and more) is in there too…somewhere…so hooray!
I have been marching around with a pitchfork and a torch demanding that Congress be defenestrated…but this budget unexpectedly satisfies my most cherished demands. Maybe if there were more blueprints like this I could swallow some more tax give-aways and religious idiocy and what not. When I am having political arguments, I always say I will support any stupidity as long as there is more money for fundamental scientific research. This government has really pushed just how far such a bargain extends…and yet they came through in the end.
Of course, there may be some people who cry out that all of those millions and billions could be given to impoverished communities (Democrats) or to needy multi-billionaire plutocrats (Republicans), but ensuring scientific research and keeping Visigoth hordes from swimming the ocean and sacking our cities are the two things the government MUST do to ensure there is a future….and they have done that. The future generations who will have to pay this leviathan $1.3 trillion tab, might actually get something for their money: a yet-unknown equivalent of the internet, the capacitor, the moon landing, or the wonder vaccines of yesteryear. At least the government is trying to fulfill humankind’s most fundamental aspiration—to know more about the universe and how it works so we don’t destroy ourselves (sadly, this great quest, as construed by the powers-that-be, involves building tons of super-weapons with which to destroy ourselves, but nobody said life was easy).
Of course it is a tumultuous time and I may be saying a very different thing next week, but for the present the seed corn for the crops of the future has been stowed away. I am pleasantly surprised to say “Good job!” to our elected officials.
ferrebeekeeper 