It is deeply disappointing that a quarter of the federal government has been shut down due to an inability to reach agreement on appropriations for the current budget year. I strongly urge Congress and the administration to find a way forward quickly that enables critical agencies to resume their missions of advancing discovery — and our nation.
Category: Federal Budget
Encouraging our lawmakers to reauthorize the HEA
Right now, Congress is considering a number of different bills that would reauthorize the Higher Education Act (HEA). The HEA was first enacted in 1965, and periodically reauthorized, to strengthen our nation’s colleges and universities and expand access to higher education for more Americans. The University of Washington strongly supports the reauthorization of the HEA, which is more vital than ever as more and more of our economy’s best jobs are requiring a four-year credential.
In support of reauthorization, including specific provisions that we believe will best serve the people of Washington and the nation, I have written to the Senate HELP Committee leadership as well as to all of the members of Washington’s Congressional delegation. In my letter, which you can read here, I encouraged our Senators and Representatives to help protect our students, our economy and our future in partnership with higher education.
Update on the final federal tax bill
Today, the U.S. House and Senate passed a tax bill, which, when it becomes law, will dramatically revise our nation’s tax code. The bill does not contain some of the most damaging proposals for higher education that I have written about previously, but it includes some provisions that will make it harder for colleges and universities to provide the teaching and learning that students seek and that our economy demands.
Tax bill provisions hurt students and threaten the economy
These tax bills currently remain very damaging to students, making it harder and more expensive for people to earn the very credentials they need as more and more jobs require post-secondary degrees. This is both bad for students and bad for the economy.
Proposed tax bills would hurt students and economic competitiveness in Washington and the US
This week, the U.S. House of Representatives is expected to consider and pass H.R. 1, the Tax Cut and Jobs Act. A similar bill is working its way through the Senate. Despite some differences between the House and Senate versions, the proposed legislation would significantly increase the UW’s operating costs and reduce incentives for charitable giving, at great cost to students who rely on private philanthropy to access a college education.
Counting the true cost of cuts to research funding
Funding by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has supported countless discoveries that have saved or improved millions of lives, from Dr. Mary-Claire King’s discovery of the BRCA1 breast cancer gene to new, more accurate diagnostic tools for Alzheimer’s disease. As I’ve written before, the President’s budget proposal would dramatically cut NIH’s research funding, slowing progress in understanding and curing diseases that ultimately affect nearly every single American in some form.
This week, I reached out to the U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price and the Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney to share our concerns about the very real ways in which those funding cuts could not merely impede but actually dismantle our nation’s biomedical research and discovery ecosystem, now the envy of the world.
Among the changes proposed in the budget are significant cuts to Facilities and Administration or F&A reimbursements (also known as indirect research costs). While direct costs like researcher pay and lab equipment are the expenses the public most associates with research, F&A costs are real and necessary expenses that are just as integral to research. Like the plumbing and wiring that make a building inhabitable, F&A covers essential infrastructure that a university’s labs and researchers all rely on, like secure computing systems, high-speed data processing and storage, radiation and chemical safety precautions, and personnel costs associated with meeting federal and state regulations related to the safety of human subjects, to name a few. Just as four walls and a roof are not enough to make a house livable, without the infrastructure covered by F&A, universities cannot conduct the kinds of cutting-edge research that results in cures and treatments that save lives.
Even under current law, F&A reimbursements do not cover the full cost of conducting research. The UW is able to make up the difference, effectively subsidizing federal research spending. But if these drastic cuts take effect, it would be impossible to provide the level of support that currently keeps our research efforts moving forward.
The UW and the many people who benefit from our biomedical research would suffer from this budget, and across the country, research universities, especially public institutions, would suffer as well. It would devastate the national biomedical research community and the economy built on research discoveries, leading to a decline in the number of biomedical start-ups based in the U.S. At a minimum, discovery would be slowed, but worse, the loss in momentum nationally to our research breakthroughs would cost many lives that could have been saved.
There is a clear and compelling case for the national interest we all share in federal investment in biomedical research and discovery. I invite and encourage all who care about this issue – and I believe that’s all of us – to raise your voices as well.
New budget would harm nation’s health, economy and security
In March, I wrote about the negative impacts on our nation’s health, economy and security that would result from implementation of the President’s budget outline for the next fiscal year, FY18.
That initial budget outline has now been expanded to a full proposed budget for FY18, which was released today. The cuts to science, health care and other investments in our national prosperity are even more draconian – and more harmful – than those proposed in the original outline.
Public investment in science serves Washington and the world
Exploration and discovery are at the core of our mission. For many of us, they are the substance of our life’s work. This Saturday, I know many members of our University of Washington community will march in support of science and inquiry. I wanted to take this opportunity to reiterate the UW’s enduring and vocal support for scientific research.
On the value of science, healthcare and education, our Washington delegation is listening
This week, I spent a few days in the “other Washington” where I had the opportunity to meet with the members of our legislative delegation and their staffs. I shared with them the invaluable, vital work that our University of Washington community does to expand the frontiers of scientific research, improve healthcare, develop creativity through the arts, and provide quality and affordable education to our students.
Proposed budget would be huge step backward for innovation and economic security
Today, as anticipated, the President released a proposed federal budget blueprint for Fiscal Year 2018. The proposal is short on details, but it contains sweeping cuts that would harm American innovation and prosperity, the education of our nation’s students, and the research and creativity that is the foundation of progress in every field from medicine to the arts.
Without question, if passed, this budget would harm the University of Washington’s ability to serve our students, state and nation. It represents a major step backward for American scientific research and innovation, and reduces opportunities for millions of deserving young people. With devastating cuts to biomedical research and student aid, and to environmental science and the arts, this shortsighted proposal attacks the very investments that have made the United States healthy and prosperous. This budget is simply unacceptable and together with my fellow higher education leaders, I plan to work actively with Washington’s federal delegation and other congressional leaders to advocate for policies that keep America the global leader in innovation and opportunity.
To take effect, these proposals would have to be approved by Congress and we will be traveling to Washington, DC in early April to meet with administration officials as well as our congressional delegation. Many of the areas proposed for cuts have received strong, bipartisan support in the past, so I am hopeful that we will instead see the federal government continue to invest in the areas that, over the decades, have contributed to America’s prosperity and vitality. To support these efforts, we all can continue to demonstrate the value that every aspect of our University provides to our students, Washington and the world.
The list of affected programs is lengthy – those supporting students, such as TRiO and GEAR UP; those advancing research such as the NIH, Department of Energy, NOAA, NASA, and the EPA; and those creating a rich, vibrant national life, such as the NEA and NEH. The proposal does not reference cuts to the NSF. You can find more information about the specific cuts proposed on the UW Federal Relations blog.
In addition, we’ll also be speaking with our delegation about proposed legislation to replace the Affordable Care Act. The House legislation being considered would have significant negative outcomes for many of the patients who receive care at UW Medicine. If the proposed American Health Care Act were to be fully implemented, UW Medicine could lose an estimated $518 million per year in Medicaid/Medicare reimbursement and charity care costs, with significant impacts to UW Medicine services at Harborview. This would have dramatic effects on our ability to serve our patients and our communities.
Budgets are values made real. And so our nation faces a choice between a future in which our global competitors surge ahead of us, reaping the benefits of their investments in education, medicine, science, the arts and humanities; or a future in which we continue to discover, to teach, to create and to cure. I am fully committed to doing everything I can to ensure that brighter, more prosperous future becomes reality.