🔬 Federal R&D cuts would be another (massive) unforced policy error

Less cutting-edge science and less trade? What are we doing here? Good grief.

My fellow pro-growth/progress/abundance Up Wingers,

I see my job, broadly, as having two main parts. First, generate and promote evidenced-based, Up Wing public policy ideas (ones helpful to human flourishing). Second, make the evidence-based case against Down Wing public policy ideas (ones destructive to human flourishing).

Sometimes one part takes precedence over the other part. And right now, it seems, quashing Down Wing stupidity is most important. For whatever reason, too much of the American public and too many American policymakers seem especially receptive to really, really harmful ideas. Such as … making tariffs central to American economic policy.

But the following doozy of an idea is just as misguided and inexplicable as self-owning trade policy: “NSF layoffs in 2025: Deep budget cuts headed for U.S. research sector.” According to the informative piece in R&D World by reporter Brian Buntz, the National Science Foundation — currently with an annual budget of $9 billion and historically funding a quarter of all federally supported basic research — is bracing for a possible draconian reduction of more than half, to $3–4 billion.

This all comes amid aggressive federal downsizing orchestrated by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, which mandated staff reductions of 25–50 percent across science agencies. Already operating nearly $7 billion below spending targets established in the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act, NSF has reinstated most probationary employees terminated in February's shock layoffs. Yet it remains under DOGE's directive to develop formal workforce reduction plans by mid-April.

Buntz: “In the face of the cuts, NSF, a major funder of basic research in the U.S., would be forced to considerably reduce or halt grant awards, potentially impacting thousands of researchers, universities, and projects. … While the U.S. remains the world’s research superpower … China is quickly catching up and could be the world’s top R&D spender by 2030. ”

Actually, that freeze scenario outlined in the April 10 R&D World piece seems to now be happening, as Nature reports today: “All new research grants have been frozen at the NSF — an action apparently ordered by DOGE.” Yikes.

What’s going on here? I fear this isn’t just an issue of fiscal rectitude or an ill-informed efficiency obsession gone wild.