Challenges Facing Science
CHALLENGES FACING SCIENCE&TECNOLOGY AFTER SEPTEMBER 11
It is hard for us to fully comprehend how much our world changed on September 11. The challenges that we now face may not be that different from the challenges we faced a year ago, but our awareness of these challenges has changed dramatically. As a result everything we deal with is different. This chapter discusses the new pressures on the federal budget, especially for science, and the challenges presented by the changing demographics. I also discuss how efforts to advance science must change and specifically how strategies to increase the resources available for scientific inquiry must change if we are to maintain momentum. New Pressures on the Federal Budget since September 11 The federal government today faces a decline in resources at the exact moment that it also faces a dramatic increase in the demands for those re- sources. That puts us all in a difficult position. The U.S. economy slowed last year, reducing receipts to the federal treasury. Recovery is tepid and long-term. This situation will affect revenues not only in FY 2001 and FY 2002 but probably in FY 2003 as well.
Growth from a lower base produces less revenue. The impact that the economy has had on revenues was seriously compounded by changes in the federal tax law that were adopted last summer.
The new tax law does not by itself explain the dramatic reversal from fiscal surplus to triple-digit deficits in one year, but it was a major contributor and SCOTT LILLY
16 it will erode the federal tax base by larger and larger amounts over the next
10 years. This tax bill will cost the government nearly $100 billion in the coming fiscal year. Revenues lost to that bill will exceed a quarter of a trillion dollars a year by the end of the decade. But the decline in available revenues is no more dramatic than the increased and urgent demands for
It is hard for us to fully comprehend how much our world changed on September 11. The challenges that we now face may not be that different from the challenges we faced a year ago, but our awareness of these challenges has changed dramatically. As a result everything we deal with is different. This chapter discusses the new pressures on the federal budget, especially for science, and the challenges presented by the changing demographics. I also discuss how efforts to advance science must change and specifically how strategies to increase the resources available for scientific inquiry must change if we are to maintain momentum. New Pressures on the Federal Budget since September 11 The federal government today faces a decline in resources at the exact moment that it also faces a dramatic increase in the demands for those re- sources. That puts us all in a difficult position. The U.S. economy slowed last year, reducing receipts to the federal treasury. Recovery is tepid and long-term. This situation will affect revenues not only in FY 2001 and FY 2002 but probably in FY 2003 as well.
Growth from a lower base produces less revenue. The impact that the economy has had on revenues was seriously compounded by changes in the federal tax law that were adopted last summer.
The new tax law does not by itself explain the dramatic reversal from fiscal surplus to triple-digit deficits in one year, but it was a major contributor and SCOTT LILLY
16 it will erode the federal tax base by larger and larger amounts over the next
10 years. This tax bill will cost the government nearly $100 billion in the coming fiscal year. Revenues lost to that bill will exceed a quarter of a trillion dollars a year by the end of the decade. But the decline in available revenues is no more dramatic than the increased and urgent demands for