Letter to Congress: Students' Sequestration Concerns
November 15th, 2012
Dear House and Senate Leaders and Members:
We, the undersigned XX thousand students, are concerned about our future as scientists and engineers in America. On January 2, 2013, with no further legislative action, sequestrations will reduce the federal support of science by 9 percent, a reduction of more than $15 billion at a time when other countries are prioritizing scientific investment. While we must adopt practices to live within our means, we must not do so by compromising our future prosperity.
We urge you to resume consideration of a comprehensive deficit reduction plan that not only ensures fiscal stability but also sustains the scientific and technological enterprise that is responsible for 70 percent of modern economic growth. As the bipartisan Bowles-Simpson Committee noted in December 2010, even as we cut spending we must continue to "invest in education, infrastructure, and high-value research and development to help our economy grow, keep us globally competitive, and make it easier for businesses to create jobs."
As future leaders in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, we will be the ones to build a better America, but we cannot begin that journey without the necessary training or future job prospects. Becoming a leading scientist or engineer requires extensive training at cutting-edge research laboratories, many of which are federally supported and located within universities. Sequestrations threaten to further cut funding for these labs, effectively choking off the centers that educate and prepare us as future innovators.
We recognize that little time remains between now and the January 2, 2013, date of reckoning. But the stakes are so high that the ideological gridlock, which has hampered progress on deficit reduction, must be broken now for the sake of the future.
Respectfully,
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Questions?
For further information, contact Tyler Glembo (glembo@aps.org).
Glossary
Sequestrations
Sequestration is the term for the automatic, across the board, budget cuts scheduled to take place on January 2nd, 2013 to all discretionary spending accounts.
Bowles-Simpson Committee
The Bowles-Simpson plan was a bi-partisan plan from the National Commission on Fiscal Responsbility and Reform which examined discretionary spending, entitlement reform, and taxation to create a plan that would have reduced U.S. publicly held debt to 25% of GDP by the year 2040.
More Information About Bowles-Simpson
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