Outcomes
Science magazine on the government shutdown:
The shutdown is “just deeply disappointing because Congress has had months to fund the government,” said Ken Kimmell, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in a statement. “Without a resolution the federal scientific enterprise will come to a screeching halt, potentially adding millions of dollars in costs and months of delay to taxpayer funded projects.”
It’s the spawn of “starve the beast” – of that whole right-wing trend to frame all government as the enemy, from Ayn Rand to Grover Norquist to these pieces of crap who are trashing everything now. They want to make the US a failed state; that’s the goal.
The shutdown’s impacts could be especially complicated at federal facilities that host researchers who are not federal employees. The federally-operated Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) in Edgewater, Maryland, for example, “will be closed to the public and all employees except for a few staff needed for security, animal care and emergency responses,” stated Anson Hines, SERC’s director, in an email. The one-third of the center’s staff who are federal employees “will not be allowed to do any work offsite, and all who are on travel will be required to return home as quickly as possible.” But the other two-thirds are funded through the Smithsonian’s private trust, “so they’re expected to work as much as possible offsite. However, I’m sure you can imagine, without access to the SERC laboratory, the work they can do will be limited.”
The beast is duly starved.
As much as I am a fan of art, music, culture, and cuisine that make a nation great, science brings more to the table for a modern civilization than any other input. As infinitely stupid or selfish as most people in Washington are they tend to understand at some juvenile level that a nation without scientific advancement fails.
Maybe it is worth advertising to people that money to science generally comes from the government. Once they reopen their eyes they might put their differences aside and turn it al back on.
At one point in my life I worked for a state, but it was in a federal program (Social Security Disability); the feds funded it, and the state administered it, because state employees tend to make less than federal employees, so it was cheaper, plus the states had the networks with doctors, etc, that were necessary to run the program.
During a federal shutdown, the State of Oklahoma magnanimously covered our salaries in the gamble that the shutdown wouldn’t last long, and they would get reimbursed (they actually made money off the program, because the feds paid our salaries plus a percentage for operating costs, which was more than it cost to operate the program). The gamble worked.
I wonder if any state would be willing to make that gamble now? Under this current administration (both White House and Congress), I don’t know that I’d take any bets that they’ll manage to get their asses out of this hole.