Stimulating research
November 12th, 2009
Yesterday on NPR there was a story that questioned the utility of using stimulus funds for long-term research. I am not sure exactly why they use the phrase “long-term” since all of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA) funds need to be spent within two years; perhaps two years is long-term thinking nowadays. In any event, as a recipient of a significant amount of ARRA funds, I can say that we have spent a lot of the money, have hired a bunch of people, and have plans to hire several more. That’s what was supposed to happen, right? Where’s the problem? People are quick to criticize but no one seems to have a better mechanism for spending a lot of money very quickly. Without going through existing channels like research and transportation funding, the money would have taken a lot longer to get out and likely would not have the long term benefits that this spending will have.
Update: The Daily Scan picked up this story. Since they posted the story two days after it aired, they probably first saw it here but for some reason did not feel the need to link here (they often link to both the original story and the blog where they picked up the link). This is not the first time that has happened. Perhaps I have offended them somehow.
Update2: The above was a tongue-in-cheek comment about The Daily Scan. It was not intended as an indication that I really think they are snubbing me. There are many legitimate reasons for their delay in posting the NPR story.
Posted in genomics, politics | 2 Comments »
Tagged with: genomics, politics, wustl
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November 12th, 2009 at 5:42 pm
I think they’re overlooking the “Reinvestment” in the ARRA. The goal is to stimulate the economy WHILE rebuiding our infrastructure to promote real growth (not based on government spending or fun with investment derivatives) in the future, basic research plays a key component in both.
Metric we were judging on was short term results, I imagine the government could have just mailed out another set of stimulus checks to everyone like they did last year (though these would have been substantially bigger).
November 13th, 2009 at 4:28 pm
James, thanks for explicitly mentioning the reinvestment portion of the act. I meant to point that out but my fleeting memory got the better of me. Good point about the rebate checks. They didn’t exactly help to avert the crisis, did they?