By James Pethokoukis

Don’t let the direction of US federal debt — the CBO projects a doubling to 202 percent of GDP by 2051 — fool you. Washington isn’t as myopic as it first appears. Not always. Policymakers can think long term on occasion. Last November, President Biden signed a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill into law. But there are worrisome signs that last year’s moment of economic foresight might be a one-off.

Example: Congress recently passed a $1.5 trillion omnibus to fund federal agencies for the rest of the year. And although Biden requested a 20 percent increase to the NSF budget, it was slashed by Congress to about a 4.1 percent increase. That’s less than the current inflation rate. Then there’s Biden’s funding request for the new Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health. It received $1 billion rather than the $6.5 billion the president requested last year. (Below chart from AAAS.)

While the infrastructure bill reinforces a theory I have, the skinny science funding does the opposite. And my theory is this: Despite high levels of partisanship and a closely divided Congress, big policy achievements are possible. See, when America did big things in the past — the Louisiana Purchase, the GI Bill, the National Highway System, the Apollo program — they were typically enabled by various special circumstances, such as national security or some crisis. The Great Depression, World War II, and the space race against the Soviet Union are obvious examples. (Journalist James Fallows gives an insightful elaboration in a 2015 talk to the Long Now Foundation.)

And right now there seem to be plenty of circumstances that could serve as a catalyst for action: a global pandemic, a rising geopolitical rival in China, climate change, and, now, war in Europe. And all of those potential catalysts have a science and technology aspect to them. So a big boost to R&D would seem like an easy sell. But apparently not. And going forward, I am concerned that military R&D — although it often has potential dual-use impacts — might crowd out purely civilian research. We need to do both as a full-spectrum Innovation State. As a physicist who tracked federal science policy told Nature. “Science is one of the least contentious issues, but it’s not something that puts food on the table tomorrow.” Then again, science investment might be as close to a free lunch as you’re likely to find in Washington.

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