Federal R&D lost over $200 billion due to Budget Control Act, AAAS finds
In the wake of the Great Recession, Congress enacted the Budget Control Act (BCA) of 2011 to curb federal discretionary spending as the nation approached the statutory debt limit. Originally intended to reduce spending by nearly $2 trillion over the period from FY 2012 through FY 2021, the BCA spending caps were periodically raised by Congress.
In the wake of the Great Recession, Congress enacted the Budget Control Act (BCA) of 2011 to curb federal discretionary spending as the nation approached the statutory debt limit. Originally intended to reduce spending by nearly $2 trillion over the period from FY 2012 through FY 2021, the BCA spending caps were periodically raised by Congress. While these negotiations reduced the overall impact of the BCA, new analysis from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) estimates that more than $200 billion in federal R&D spending were nonetheless “lost” to these spending cuts, impacting several key elements of innovation economies — higher education R&D, private R&D investment, and STEM workforce development.
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