So, like, Sen. Susan Collins, the one from Maine, started this hearing on Wednesday, right? And she was totally bashing the Trump administration for cutting science funding, firing federal scientists, and causing all this uncertainty in policy that could mess up America’s global leadership, you know? Collins, who’s the boss of the Senate Appropriations Committee, was all like, “Yo, the administration just randomly canceled grants and axed scientists for no good reason. This is gonna put our leadership in biomedical innovation at serious risk and needs to stop.”
And then, get this, like some super smart peeps at American University’s Institute for Macroeconomic & Policy Analysis dropped a study on Wednesday that showed how huge cuts in federal funding for scientific research could mess up the economy big time, like a major recession style.
In the first 100 days of Trump 2.0, they let go of 1,300 peeps from The National Institutes of Health, which is like the biggest funder of biomedical research globally, and ditched over $2 billion in federal research grants.
And then, earlier this week, they straight up fired all the scientists and authors working on this big climate change report, you know? Like, no chill at all.
In one move, the Trump crew took away almost $4 million from Princeton’s climate research because they thought it didn’t line up with what the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) wanted.
According to the White House, Princeton’s research was making climate change seem way worse than it actually is.
And, like, brace yourself, ‘cause the White House is planning to cut even more spending as part of the annual budget thing. The NIH and the National Science Foundation are basically the main dudes funding all the science stuff.
This study from American University’s eggheads is one of the first to look into how much the government’s cuts to science spending could mess up the whole economy.
They ran some scenarios and found out that if they cut 25 percent of the research and development spending, the GDP could drop by almost 4 percent over like 25 to 30 years. It’s kinda like the Great Recession, but dragged out over a long time.
If they slash R&D spending by half, the GDP could tank by more than 7.5 percent. And not just that, but living standards could go down the drain, and the government’s cash flow could drop by 8.6 percent each year.
The study talks about how businesses don’t really wanna shell out for basic science stuff ‘cause it’s risky and the returns take forever to show up. That’s where the government steps in to make sure we keep moving forward.
But, like, basic science is what drives all the cool tech stuff and helps the economy grow, you know?
“This is all about building a better society and investing in the future,” said Ignacio González Garcia, one of the study’s authors. “Everything starts with basic science—everything starts with things that are usually paid for by the public.”
The cuts in funding have mostly hit the medical centers and other places doing research. The Association of American Universities even sued the Department of Health & Human Services and the NIH ‘cause they thought the funding cuts would wreck medical research and mess up life in the U.S.
“The effects will be bad news bears right away,” the group said in their complaint. “Even the big shot institutions will take a hit from this, and it’s gonna mess with their ability to make medical breakthroughs.”
They even sued again when the administration said they wanted to slash funding for Department of Energy research at colleges and universities.
So, yeah, this whole situation is pretty wild. Like, are we really sure why this is happening? Who knows, man. But the bottom line is that science funding is getting the boot, and we might all end up paying the price for it.
