The Congressional Research Service Teaches Science to Congress
March 10, 2014
A study in forced neutrality
By Wayne Biddle
HERE is today’s lesson, class:
Science and technology (S&T) play an increasingly important role in our society. Advances in science and technology can help drive economic growth, improve human health, increase agricultural productivity, and help meet national priorities. Federal policies affect scientific and technological advancement on several levels.
It sounds like your old social studies textbook — the one that started from zero and spent hundreds of novocaine-brain pages plowing back and forth across the obvious, so that students of every potential from nothing to infinity might absorb a few basics. But it is actually the opening of the Congressional Research Service’s latest report for members of Congress about the science and technology issues they will encounter during the current session. In an era when the CRS has plenty of readers for whom positive connections among “S&T,” federal policies, and national priorities are rather less than paradigmatic, it can take nothing for granted. After all, prominent members of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology have blamed global warming on dinosaur flatulence, warned that embryology and the Big Bang are lies straight from Hell, and cast aspersions on the First Lady’s anti-obesity campaign because of her “large posterior.” Nowadays the CRS must probe carefully for the most fruitful starting point, which is far, far below where it used to be.
Since 1952, when spies were presumed to be stealing American know-how at every turn (they were, they are, they always will), CRS reports have not been issued for the public, though they are in no way classified documents. A common citizen can get one from the government by asking for its number, a feat rather like already knowing Rumpelstiltskin’s name. (FYI, various organizations, particularly the Federation of American Scientists, collect them from friendly sources on the Hill and post them online.) For members of Congress, they are long-form Google answers with a human face, A+ term papers written by grinds who always hand in on time. Perhaps the Capitol’s last gasp of bipartisanship, they are solid as a rock, smooth as silk, and boring as hell, which perhaps explains why their budget has never been vaporized.
R43114, the forty-three-page S&T report for the 113th Congress, does start from absolute zero, so let’s open our copy and see what’s inside.
After several pages of explaining how the three branches of government work, to cover the apparently non-negligible possibility that some members arrive in Washington unclear about this, we find out right away that between 2009 and 2012, federal funding for all research and development fell from $147.3 billion to $140.9 billion, a decline of 4.3 percent in “current dollars” or 8.7 percent in “constant dollars.” The current/constant duet, which is ubiquitous in government budget talk, requires a bit of mental soft-shoe that could very well put certain members at a disadvantage. Inflation is slippery — just try to convince your grandmother why an ice-cream cone should cost $4.25 — and federal agencies inspired by the Pentagon learned long ago how to use it to feign imminent destitution across fiscal years. So the CRS takes no chances, emphasizing right away that this drop-off is “a reversal of sustained growth in federal R&D funding for more than half a century,” that such cuts are “exacerbated” by increases in other countries such as “China in particular,” and that American trade surpluses in high-tech products have been replaced by deficits. It’s a deft one-two-three rhetorical volley, combining respect for the past, patriotism, and the bottom line. Can anyone disagree?
remainder: http://harpers.org/blog/2014/03/the-congressional-research-service-teaches-science-to-congress/
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