The Best of Times or the Worst of Times?

By Burton Richter, Ph.D.

I recently started a talk on High Energy Physics with the first line from Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities - “It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.” That is the situation science is in today - the best of times because opportunities in all areas are legion and many will lead to new insights and transformative technologies; the worst of times because federal research budgets are not even keeping up with inflation, much less with the opportunities.

Scientists have been caught in a squeeze between the administration and Congress over priorities for the past two years. In FY08, the President put in generous increases for the physical sciences in his budget and Congress added even more in the individual appropriations bills. The America COMPETES Act, which aimed at doubling the basic research budget for the physical sciences over the next decade and improving science and math education, passed with a huge bipartisan majority and was signed into law in August 2007. But it all crashed in the year-end budget wars when the President held fast to his original budget submission totals for the first time in his administration, and the Democratic leadership in Congress forgot that Bill Clinton won every budget battle after the Democrats lost their majority in Congress in 1994. In the end, R&D funding for FY08 did not keep up with inflation (after subtracting pork projects), and the COMPETES act promises came to nothing.

The same thing is likely to happen to the budgets for the next fiscal year. In his proposal for FY09, the President’s budget has been extremely generous to the physical sciences, but he has been less than generous in other programs of importance to Congress including biomedical research. All the rumors in Washington are pointing to a long term continuing resolution where funding will be held to some relatively low level. Three years in a row are a long time to starve the country’s science programs.

An even more serious problem is the attitude of the young. I recently attended one of the west coast regional science bowls. It was full of bright kids, several of whom asked me what was happening to science and why if it was so important people were being laid off at government laboratories. Worst of all, some of them wondered if they should go on into science careers if science was so poorly regarded by the government.

Everyone in Washington seems to understand that long-term R&D is essential to our economic health as well as to our understanding of the universe and our place in it. Most also recognize that because of changes in the way our economy works, long-term R&D has been almost entirely driven out of private industry and is increasingly the responsibility of the government. However, Washington seems incapable of enacting budgets in a considered manner and doing for science what all agree needs to be done.

If our leaders would only open their eyes they would see the rest of the world gaining on us in R&D. Part of this is natural. China and India, like Japan and Korea before them, have entered a stage of rapid economic development. First their manufacturing expanded and now their science and technology base, both short term and long term, is expanding as well. But if we slow down as they speed up our long-term position as leaders in science and technology will be lost.

A long-term view is needed. Unfortunately, in Washington long-term is defined as the time to the next presidential election. On the brighter side, that is not too far away. If science does badly again this year, it is only one more year until long-term means another four years and there is a chance that coherent policy will be enacted and funded.

Burton Richter is Professor Emeritus at Stanford University. He won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1976 and is on the Board of Directors for Scientists and Engineers for America.