HR 4186 Essays Examples

Currently, there is legislation going through Congress on how to allocate funds for the National Science Funds. This provides funding for many different scientific disciplines and areas. One of the most controversial issues in the bill is the 42 percent cut of social, behavioral, and economic science. The social sciences are not being well funded by this bill, which is a problem. The social sciences, which includes psychology, statistics, and political science are seeing a disproportionate cut in funding compared to the other sciences. This is not even helping cut overall government spending, which is the justification for this action.
Another problem with the bill is that it seeks to micromanage the sciences by requiring a burdensome process to get funding for certain projects approved. The proposals by the National Science Fund will have to meet all the review committees’ requirements, not the scientific communities, which can have a chance at undermining the scientific peer review process. Every proposal will have to show that it meets national interests, not the scientific community. This is especially troublesome for the social sciences because the review committee clearly now does not value these disciplines as much as the rest of the scientific community.
Other parts of the bill include a hold on the National Science Fund’s current level of spending, which is currently about $7 billion. It will include free access to publications by the National Science Fund after about 2-3 years, which is a change from the current agreement between scientists of around 1 year. The bottom line concerning HR 4186 is that it is an increase in the regulatory procedures of Congress and the scientific community. This bill is said to anger many Democrats, especially because of the cuts in social science funding.