In The Nationalization of American Science I warned that the Trump administration’s rewriting of the seemingly routine Federal Financial Assistance Regulation is a major threat to America’s historically successful science funding system. Many others are now sounding the alarm.
Not surprisingly, organizations like AAAS oppose the law, albeit in unusually strong terms:
This latest move is a serious takeover of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget’s authority to carry out the will of Congress and the American people and will result in reduced future appropriations. If this rule becomes final, Americans’ hopes for future health care, national security and economic power will depend on the scientific views of the nation’s chief executive. Alzheimer’s disease will not be cured by a budget analyst of any political party.
But now we’re seeing a strong push from independent thinkers such as:
Grayson Logue writes at The Dispatch:
A shocking new law proposed by the Trump administration could reshape the way that money is disbursed and give the president and his political appointees discretion to cancel funding or targeted recipients for almost any reason — with little chance of recovery.
White House officials say the new law is needed to ensure more accountability for government spending, but observers fear the change will increase opportunities for politicization, abuse, and corruption in an administration that has already shown a tendency to use federal government sanctions to punish allied enemies and reward ideological allies.
Dan Drezner:
if I were trying to destroy America’s leadership in scientific research this is like the law I would write…One of the real difficulties with looking at Trump’s second term is that attacks on federal power and impartiality have become so widespread that it’s hard to keep track of everything that’s going on. But these proposed rule changes are monumental and disastrous.
and Noah Smith:
MAGA’s attack on science is worse than it seems…despite the incredible popularity of science and public trust, Trump and his administration are launching an unprecedented and devastating attack on American science – cutting funding, and forcing scientific projects to be reviewed by government commissions.
The Trump administration may have gone too far, but my real concern is that we are losing balance. Science has never been completely independent of politics, of course, but even in the worst of times, funding was fragmented and the culture war stuff that dominated the headlines was never more than a small part of the whole. Like an independent judge, independent science has become an American virtue. COVID policy, gender policy, and now the Trump administration’s weaponization of these mistakes may have thrown that balance off.
As I wrote in my original post, we adopt the failed policies of authoritarian nations but those policies are commonplace elsewhere for a reason. Controlling science in one place is automatic because it favors the people in power of any group. Regionalism is a fragile state—a historically unusual achievement that is easier to destroy than to rebuild.
