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Thursday, November 3, 2011

“Too Critical to Cut”: Letter Urges Deficit Committee to Avoid R&D Funding Cuts

From the American Institute of Physics

11/3/2011

Almost 70 scientific societies and associations, universities, and organizations signed a letter authored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science urging a special congressional committee that is charged with developing a deficit reduction plan to avoid cutting R&D funding. Among those signing this letter were the American Institute of Physics and five of its Member Societies, including the American Association of Physics Teachers, American Astronomical Society, American Geophysical Union, American Physical Society, and the Optical Society of America.

The submission of this letter comes amidst speculation that the committee may be unsuccessful in crafting a plan to reduce the federal deficit by $1.2 trillion dollars during the next ten years. If the committee cannot agree upon a plan by November 23, or if Congress does not adopt it a month later, the Budget Control Act mandates automatic reductions in federal spending in January 2013 (note that this is a year from next January.) House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Norm Dicks (D-WA) recently outlined the likely impacts of such a reduction on budgets of interest to the physics community. For complete article

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