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Social Science Is Losing the War on Social Science

- May 1, 2013

That’s Dave Weigel’s pessimistic conclusion here.  About social scientists, Weigel says:

…it’s difficult for them to justify their own funding in a time of severe government cutbacks. Since March 1, when Congress and the president failed to replace sequestration with anything less idiotic, the human faces of austerity have included children whose Head Start programs are being cut, older people who are going without Meals on Wheels, and—less heart-tugging—business travelers and tourists whose flights were delayed. (We fixed that last one.)

All of those victims have infinitely more marquee value than social science professors.

Weigel has kind words for this blog and links to Greg Koger’s previous post (at the moment, misattributed to me).  The upshot, it seems to me, is that congressional scrutiny is no longer being directed only at political or social science.  All of the programs at the NSF could face restrictions akin to those of the Coburn amendment, depending on what House ultimately does and how the Senate and the White House respond.