Yves here. As DOGE\u2019s carpet-bombing of Federal programs continues, it can\u2019t be said often enough that this destruction of some of the anchors of what is left of American competitiveness is either exceptionally dumb in its degree of ideological blindness, or designed to set up plutocratic looting\u2026.even at the cost of destroying the value of many assets.<\/p>\n
As an aside, the reason more of mainstream America is not worried, and even cheering DOGE on when the not-far-away consequences to them will be is the way the professional-managerial class has expressed open hatred toward its perceived inferiors, with the Hillary Clinton \u201cdeplorables\u201d speech a crystalizing event. What\u2019s happening now is not (yet) as bloody or extreme as, say, Pol Pottery or the persecution of intellectuals and scientists during the Cultural Revolution. But as a young person in Manhattan, I had difficulty understanding New York Magazine\u2019s relentless campaign in the 1980s against Donald Trump\u2026because he decorated with gold? Dated and married swimsuit models? Couldn\u2019t be bothered giving to the right charities and hiring the right decorators? And worst of all\u2026came from Queens? By contrast, the financial press lauded the likes of Henry Kravis and George Roberts precisely because they took the effort (as in spent the money and affect the right behavior) to woo the old New York elite. Even then, some the old guard on Wall Street recognized how destructive their leveraged buyouts would prove to be, not by (eventually) leaving bankruptcies in their wake, but by making it more attractive to strip mine companies than build them.<\/p>\n
To defend the funding of science and medicine, members of the academy and the professions need to articulate more clearly how Federal funding has helped and can help them in concrete ways. How many Americans know the iPhone, and therefore smartphones generally, depended on 12 technologies developed through Federally funded research? How many backers of NIH research have named specific, important drug, treatments, or medical devices that almost certainly would not have happened ex NIH-funded R&D? Admittedly, the post below is directed to economists or the like-minded and so focuses mainly on higher-level impacts of science funding cuts\u2026.as in it assumes the loss of talent and training is a bad thing. But there\u2019s still a widespread rhetorical failure to point out, in practical terms, how this sort of investment has and will continue to benefit ordinary Americans. Simply saying Space X depended on Federal research into jet propulsion and orbital mechanics isn\u2019t compelling for most people (why should I care about Space X? Were these advances really essential and how?). Despite the contemporary obsession with narratives, the story-telling is wanting here (note studies of jurors find they decide not by weighing evidence but by storytelling, and that tendency seems to hold broadly).<\/p>\n
One of the themes of the article is the potential for the US to lose its \u201cleadership\u201d in technology and the sciences. But how many people now identify with those lofty aspirations? I am old enough to remember a sense of national pride in the space race. As a kid in elementary school, every time there was a launch, class would stop. The teachers would pull out a TV on a cart. We\u2019d watch the countdown and liftoff. Those NASA programs were showcased as special events of national importance. When was the last time a science or medical breakthrough was celebrated as a national accomplishment, even if not quite as gripping as a blastoff?<\/p>\n
By Lynn Parramore, Senior Research Analyst at the Institute for New Economic Thinking. Originally published at the Institute for New Economic Thinking website<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Students left in limbo with PhD programs paused<\/a>. Essential scientific research slashed<\/a>. Key disease response meetings cancelled<\/a>. The threat of China\u2019s dominance<\/a> growing.<\/p>\n The Trump administration\u2019s campaign to restrict funding for U.S. institutions critical to science, technology, and health has sparked growing anxiety. Will budget cuts derail America\u2019s leadership, altering its global standing for years to come? What will it cost us\u2014and the rest of the world?<\/p>\n Phillip Alvelda, a scientist and entrepreneur with experience at NASA and DARPA, warns that damage to science, technology, and health initiatives could severely impact America\u2019s ability to innovate and maintain its global position. As the government scales back support for crucial research and education, the long-term consequences could be catastrophic\u2014not only for the economy but for public health and technological progress.<\/p>\n Alvelda spoke with the Institute for New Economic Thinking<\/a> about how cuts threaten both the immediate workforce and the pipeline of talent necessary to sustain America\u2019s competitive edge in a rapidly changing global landscape. He also shares his thoughts on how we can preserve the things that have truly made America great.<\/p>\n Lynn Parramore: Let me start with a big question. The news is full of reports about Trump administration funding cuts for science, technology, and health policy: Stories of mass firings, grants put on hold, and PhD students who are in suspended animation. Do you feel like we\u2019re witnessing a turning point in the history of science and tech in the United States?<\/strong><\/p>\n Phillip Alvelda: You know, I don\u2019t think that overall a blip like this is going to radically shift the long-term position of the United States. We\u2019re still an innovative country. We\u2019re still peopled with brilliant, hardworking, curious undergraduates and graduate students who all want to do interesting things.<\/p>\n But I think that there\u2019s a complete misunderstanding on the part of the current leadership of how that whole system works and how it underpins things that the US is and will become. And in that sense, we see a very callous disregard for things that are fundamental to the United States as a country.<\/p>\n LP: Can you give an example?<\/strong><\/p>\n PA: We just got through the pandemic\u2014although \u201cgot through\u201d is a bit of a strong statement because it\u2019s still ongoing, even though fewer people are dying from it these days. That\u2019s the good news. The only reason we saved as many lives as we did and are in a position to start seriously addressing the Long COVID epidemic\u2014now a result of the COVID pandemic\u2014is that we have a history of leadership in biotechnology. And before that, biology. And before that, general science.<\/p>\n Of course, all around that are the instruments of industry that made it possible. All of the engineering, the manufacturing, the information sciences and data analysis, the AI tools\u2014every single one of those advances and our ability to operate the companies, distribute the cures, train the medical students, and have them in the field helping people\u2014every single element of that is dependent on the graduate students funded through those agencies.<\/p>\n So it\u2019s not just a matter of the science that\u2019s momentarily interrupted. It\u2019s also a matter of the pipeline of people who can do the science, the engineering, the operations, and the clinical care. All of it is fundamentally dependent on those graduate students and their studies being funded, their education being funded, and what they\u2019re doing as part of the research infrastructure to make those things happen. What we\u2019re seeing is a huge disruption, not just to the industry itself and a momentary pause in its activities, but to our ability to sustain a workforce that can do these things.<\/p>\n LP: Can some of these displaced individuals pursue their education, training, and research in the private sector? Could that be a solution?<\/strong><\/p>\n PA: I think what many people in the private sector and many people in the government don\u2019t appreciate is that there is a huge barrier or gap in fundamental science, discovery, and technology development that is not profitable.<\/p>\n Really basic research is too speculative, too risky, and in many cases the benefits are too diffuse to be fully captured by investors in one enterprise. There\u2019s also a huge layer of infrastructure, learning, and knowledge that must be developed years before industry is in a position to take up these new ideas, with the frameworks, knowledge, background, and technologies needed to build profitable systems. So, companies do not invest in those things.<\/p>\n The only agency in the world that has a success rate in creating these technologies is the United States, through its science and technology funding agencies. By that, I mean the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), where I worked. People don\u2019t realize this.<\/p>\n The only reason you and I can talk like this via video chat on these systems is because DARPA invested hundreds of millions of dollars in material understanding, followed by more hundreds of millions developing transistors, then hundreds of millions more funding for microchips, and even more to make the internet possible.<\/p>\n All of these advancements took decades of investment, much of which went to PhD labs and universities to create those initial ideas\u2014ideas that came even before the science and the technology. Each stage relied on the government funding mechanism, which is the envy of the world. No one else has this.<\/p>\n LP: It has been pointed out that Elon Musk\u2019s companies have developed exciting products leveraging expensive, government-funded research. For example, SpaceX wouldn\u2019t exist without NASA\u2019s research in areas like jet propulsion and orbital mechanics, and Tesla\u2019s advancements wouldn\u2019t be possible without government-funded research into batteries, among other innovations.<\/strong><\/p>\n PA: Absolutely. All of the companies he runs are highly technically dependent, and they\u2019re staffed and led by technologists who benefited from these very research programs. The technologies they\u2019re building rely on the fact that we\u2019ve been investing in these areas for the last 50 years.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not an accident that he developed these things in the United States, right? He came here from South Africa. Why? Because there had been decades of investment from these agencies into the technology infrastructure, the base components he then used. He hired PhDs principally from the US, although also from other countries, to staff the companies in this country. So the idea that he would be instrumental in the downsizing of this is incredibly hypocritical. I just don\u2019t understand how he can be supporting these efforts.<\/p>\n LP: In many areas of science, like medicine, timing is crucial. Delays can lead to significant problems. For example, the FDA recently canceled a meeting of its vaccine advisory committee<\/a><\/strong> to select a strain for this year\u2019s flu vaccine, raising concerns that vaccines may not be ready in time for the 2025-2026 flu season. What are you most worried about right now?<\/strong><\/p>\n PA: It\u2019s hard to pick just one because the damage is so vast, but let me highlight a couple. Number one, I would say, is the damage to protection against pandemic threats\u2014it\u2019s probably the most immediate concern. We have an H5N1 bird flu pandemic that\u2019s on the uprise. We have a COVID pandemic that\u2019s on the downswing but a Long COVID pandemic that still persists. We have this new bizarre mystery disease in Congo. The rate of emergence of these threats is increasing, and they\u2019re getting worse because we live in a more densely interconnected and agriculturally connected global society.<\/p>\n Halting efforts that hamper our ability to address existing pandemics, let alone detect or manage incoming ones, is mind-bogglingly short-sighted. To me, actions like stopping the development of the oral COVID vaccine<\/a>\u2014and the potential shutdown of the nasal vaccine<\/a>\u2014are particularly concerning. These represent massive investments already in trials, poised to become global technologies that benefit not just the US but companies and humanity as a whole. For leaders at Health and Human Services to put these programs at risk, whether through funding freezes or trial terminations, is not just poor policy\u2014it\u2019s irresponsible. I\u2019d even classify it as evil and putting society at deep risk. And that\u2019s not hyperbole; that\u2019s very real.<\/p>\n My second example of critical damage is generational, affecting science and technology education. When you consider people\u2019s career decisions and opportunities, it\u2019s already a challenge for the United States\u2014even before the current administration\u2019s efforts\u2014to recruit and train enough scientists, technologists, and engineers to meet the demands of our increasingly technological society. And to realize the opportunities of those technologies and improve people\u2019s lives and our economy to boot. So we come into this situation over the last decade already starved for talent.<\/p>\n Historically, we\u2019ve been filling that gap with immigrants. We invite the smartest, the most brilliant people from all over the world to come to our very best institutions and learn from our best scientists and technologists how to create the future. And we hope that with that enticement, they decide to stay in the United States and grow those technologies and advancements here. But now we\u2019ve got a crack-down on immigration, so that pipeline is shutting down. Now we\u2019ve got a crack-down on the funding that allows the universities to employ these students in the first place and train them and educate them and take them through the mentorships and apprenticeships that teach them how to build these new technologies.<\/p>\n So you now have a generation coming into school in the next two, four years at least, who will not have that option.<\/p>\n LP: I\u2019d like to ask you a personal question about your background\u2014can you say a bit about how you got into science, the choices you made as a young person, and what helped you realize your vision for your life?<\/strong><\/p>\n PA: Well, it\u2019s the very programs that we\u2019re discussing. I\u2019ve been very fortunate to have had fantastic educational opportunities. My undergraduate degree was at Cornell, and my graduate school was at MIT. I had stints at NASA and DARPA, as you know. In each case, big parts of that funding, and, in fact, all of the tuition and fees for my graduate studies came from the US science and technology funding agencies. Had I not had that subsidy, I would not have been able to go because the cost even back in the 90s was unaffordable to a young student on his own.<\/p>\n I think this is a generationally damaging problem because it\u2019s not just about what\u2019s happening to folks entering school today. You\u2019re changing the entire risk calculation of someone who wants to go into this field. What is the likelihood of a stable career? Are they\u2019re going to pay for my first quarter? My first year? My first four years so I can get my undergraduate degree? Is grad school paid for? Four years of $50,000 to $100,000 a year of expenses \u2013 that\u2019s a lot. It\u2019s expensive to train a technologist. And no one has done it better than the United States \u2014 anywhere.<\/p>\n LP: You mentioned how science and technology have been America\u2019s pride and joy for decades going back. What are your thoughts on how we got to this place of this distrust and even hostility toward science that has been erupting?<\/strong><\/p>\n PA: I would make a distinction between what the general public wants and what a minority of Trump-supporting zealots are pushing for. There seems to be an effort to deconstruct what I would call the knowledge-based industries because they threaten ideology that doesn\u2019t make sense or does not match with reality. I see that in the FBI, the CIA \u2014 really all knowledge workers, people with advanced higher education. Anything that gives people global perspectives to fight bigotry or anything that helps them learn about things like the environment that is collapsing around us with anthropogenic climate change, the fossil fuel impacts there. These are inconvenient policy points, and the more people are educated about them, the fewer people support them.<\/p>\n So I think there\u2019s a broad effort to deconstruct the engines that undermine the support for that ideology.<\/p>\n LP: On the flip side, these are the engines of our economic success. It\u2019s interesting because key people in this administration are part of the world shaped by the economic dynamism driven by science and tech. Can you speak to the economic prospects we might be jeopardizing right now?<\/strong><\/p>\n PA: It\u2019s a particularly poorly timed effort because, especially with the rise of the new artificial intelligence technologies, we\u2019re seeing an ever-increasing global competitive marketplace that is taking up some of the slack that the US is stepping aside from. You look at, for example, the sovereign wealth investments of China to subsidize their industry. They\u2019re dwarfing the US investments. You may have seen some stats<\/a> that there are now more patents and AI coming out of China than the United States.<\/p>\n We already have a history of inventing a few things and then handing over the industrial capacity and manufacturing to Asia to our detriment. So how did we get here? I think that we put the wrong people in charge, honestly \u2013 people who don\u2019t have an appreciation for these things and don\u2019t know the history, don\u2019t know the technology, and they\u2019re making uninformed decisions that have serious economic and long-term global stability impact.<\/p>\n LP: DeepSeek grabbed everyone\u2019s attention with its leaner, more efficient AI models, challenging industry giants. Some argue that cutting bloat in science and tech agencies, streamlining grants, and forcing efficiency could drive innovation. What\u2019s wrong with that argument?<\/strong><\/p>\n PA: Well, I think the argument is an excellent one. I\u2019ll be the last person to say there\u2019s no bloat in government agencies or university funding or even innovative research. There are always nooks and crannies that pennies fall into. You often will find people conducting fraud.<\/p>\n LP: What about just inefficiencies, like conducting redundant studies?<\/strong><\/p>\n PA: What one person calls a redundant study could be multiple different approaches to try and figure out the same thing. Science actually depends on redundant studies to explore different ways to solve similar problems. So to call that waste is not really accurate. I think that there\u2019s a fundamental misunderstanding of the point that there\u2019s no certainty in research.<\/p>\n You\u2019re trying to discover things you don\u2019t understand yet. So the notion that you can be efficient and say, I\u2019m going to build this thing and I\u2019m just going to invest in the one thing that\u2019s going to be successful \u2014 the world doesn\u2019t work that way. You have to try dozens of things, hundreds of things, things that work, things that don\u2019t work. Remember Edison, the famous quote: \u201cI have not failed. I\u2019ve just found 10,000 ways that won\u2019t work.\u201d But eventually, he discovered the right combination \u2014 the tungsten filament that worked in the light bulb.<\/p>\n That\u2019s how we advance science. It\u2019s not a certain thing. It requires broad exploration, not just narrow convergence. It\u2019s the idea of divergent thinking and of funding divergent thinking, knowing that many of the things you explore are not going to succeed. But if you don\u2019t do that exploration, you can\u2019t find the ones that will succeed. So that is just a fundamentally different way of thinking about research that the directed corporate profit-driven motives just do not support in the same way.<\/p>\n But speaking about the waste and how that manifests and what you can do about it, you can absolutely do audits and find waste, and in fact, there have been a number of government programs to do that. Could you find ways to run the government agencies more efficiently? Absolutely. Especially with AI technologies, you could probably implement new systems and procedures and reduce the number of people. But if that\u2019s your goal, turning everything off and wrecking everything and just firing people is not the way you do it.<\/p>\n LP: Going back to conversations we had had about the pandemic\u2014you and others were critical of the CDC\u2019s handling of key aspects of the response, such as dragging its heels on admitting that the virus was airborne despite urgent warnings from scientists<\/a><\/strong>. What would be the right way to handle those types of failures at government agencies?<\/strong><\/p>\n PA: The proper response would be to install leadership that actually wants to modernize them and not just destroy them. I think that the mechanisms that you\u2019re seeing here are not just about efficiency. They\u2019re about disruption.<\/p>\n We see reports, for example, that even while the courts have ordered the flow of money to NIH grantees to continue, the senior HHS leadership from Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on down has continued to pressure the agency to not resume the funding. Most of the money has not flowed, despite the court order<\/a>, in direct violation of the court order. What is the purpose of that? Is all of it about fraud? No, of course not. Is any of it critical to our nation\u2019s future success? Absolutely. They have stopped the engine of innovation. They\u2019ve stopped the engine of advancing clinical technologies. They\u2019ve stopped the engine of educating our students to be able to do this next year and the following years.<\/p>\n Right now, they\u2019re more interested in the disruption and the stoppage than in the reinvention. Not to draw too fine a parallel, but the history of dictators has always been, I\u2019m going to tear down the system now and build a better one. And history shows us that pretty much every time they\u2019re great at the tearing down, they fail on the rebuild.<\/p>\n LP: You feel optimistic that this moment doesn\u2019t necessarily ruin our position in the world on science and innovation. But how do we sustain ourselves? How do scientists respond to the challenges so that we don\u2019t lose our momentum?<\/strong><\/p>\n PA: Number one, I think that we need to make sure that the GOP-led states that are influencing the congressional appropriations, that have the power of the purse, are encouraged by the people who want the cancer cures, who want their parents taken care of, who want their children educated, who will support resuming the normal operations of a university ecosystem and a biotechnology investment system. Unfortunately, not too many people are directly engaged with either of those aspects of society, even as critical as they are. So I\u2019m skeptical that that alone is going to drive a change in policy.<\/p>\n The other thing that I think is important is to look to states where a lot of this research is being carried out, like Massachusetts, California, and New York. These are blue states with very healthy economies. My hope is that if the government stops funding these things on the federal level, state governments will step in. But then that creates the worry that you\u2019re unraveling the ties that bind us as a nation. If the federal government is not funding these things and the states are largely independent of the federal government, why are they part of a union? It seems a little bit short-sighted on that front to me as well.<\/p>\n LP: And as we saw during the pandemic, coordination across the country is often critical.<\/strong><\/p>\n PA: That\u2019s right.<\/p>\n
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