Ames Grawert

@amescg.bsky.social

922 Followers 1591 Following

Senior Counsel at the Brennan Center, working on criminal justice policy and understanding the impact of federal funding cuts. Hopefully building a better world for everyone, especially two little girls. Views my own, dad jokes and sci-fi takes welcome.

Atlantic text: Elias Zerhouni, the National Institutes of Health director under President George W. Bush, earlier this year described what’s at stake. “When I was at NIH, it never occurred to me that I could say we’re not paying for something that Congress had appropriated money for because it was not in line with my policies,” he said. “But if that power is given to the executive branch to use whenever it wants, then all bets are off.”
Instagram post from Dr. Becky: Dear parents of covid-babies graduating kindergarten, Everybody's about to make a big deal about your kid. The little cap, the certificate, the song they've been practicing for weeks. Good, they should! But there's something else too. You. Give me a moment to make a big deal about you.
Even if the administration could claim to be economizing or pursuing necessary reforms, doing so unilaterally, without regard for Congress’s role, undercuts the stability that creates these economic returns on investment. Robert E. Rubin, a senior counselor at Centerview Partners who served as the U.S. Treasury secretary from 1995 to 1999, told us: Separation of powers and the rule of law are more than abstract concepts; they’re a powerful competitive advantage for the United States in the global economy. Unpredictable, unilateral presidential decisions risk undermining that great strength. The sciences are one particularly strong example where taxpayer-funded research created and now helps power the American economy. Deep cuts to that funding inject uncertainty into American business and risk depriving us of billions of dollars in future innovations, medicines, and consumer products.
But the law is inherently reactive, slow to intervene, and imperfect. As a case in point, late last year the Supreme Court allowed the administration to proceed with more than $750 million in NIH grant cancelations while litigation continues, citing procedural requirements. Other legal issues also remain unresolved. Congress balked at and then rejected the administration’s proposed budget cuts for FY 2026, instead increasing NIH funding in a January 2026 appropriations bill. But it remains to be seen whether the NIH and NSF will spend the money as Congress directed. Early signs are not encouraging, prompting continued uncertainty even if funding eventually materializes in full. Restoring the rule of law as a guarantor of stability for American research institutions and businesses will not be easy. Rebuilding the vital trust between the government, the scientific community, and the private sector innovators, students, workers, and grantees who benefit from that relationship may take years. But both are possible. At a minimum, Congress and the courts should reject the administration’s effort to usurp the legislature’s power of the purse. Specifically, lawmakers should continue to deny the administration’s attempts to cut research funding and watch carefully to ensure that appropriated funds are spent fairly and fully. Beyond that, leaders in both parties should seek to ensure that federal support for scientific research is properly structured to best promote the security, health, and prosperity of all Americans for the decades to come.
In the words of Arati Prabhakar, the former head of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, who was consulted for this analysis: Ignoring congressional authority over publicly funded research means that even in areas where lawmakers or the courts have directed the restoration of funding, that is only part of the story. By then, multiyear clinical trials have seen years of data collection invalidated, and patients who need lifesaving care have been abandoned. Canceled grants have in many cases still not been restored even after court action, and the message has been sent to students that open inquiry is no longer tolerated, and to foreign-born researchers, women, and people of color that contributions are not welcome. And the consequences of all that for our future health, security, and prosperity are profound.
The impact on patients is more dire still. Lost funding halted or interrupted active trials of promising new medical treatments. These clinical trials give patients access to cutting-edge therapy and represent the gold-standard method for testing new treatments and medicines. According to a study by the American Medical Association’s peer-reviewed journal of internal medicine, grant terminations during 2025 initially halted funding for 383 of these trials — or 1 in 30 such experiments. Roughly 74,000 patients may have been exposed to uncertainty or even lost access to treatments from funding disruptions. That is before accounting for clinical trials funded by the now-shuttered U.S. Agency for International Development and other agencies.
Quote from anonymous NIH researcher: It is a disheartening time to be a biomedical researcher. Colleagues have lost their funding for no clear reason. Training programs to produce the next generation of researchers have been slashed. The program officers at NIH who traditionally help us to craft and submit fundable proposals are losing their jobs and feeling demoralized due to the frequent leadership changes, addition of suspicious new layers of bureaucracy, and delays. Universities with strong biomedical research enterprises are wondering how they will fund their infrastructures and continue their cutting-edge scientific work.
Quote from Bob Rubin: Separation of powers and the rule of law are more than abstract concepts; they’re a powerful competitive advantage for the United States in the global economy. Unpredictable, unilateral presidential decisions risk undermining that great strength. The sciences are one particularly strong example where taxpayer-funded research created and now helps power the American economy. Deep cuts to that funding inject uncertainty into American business and risk depriving us of billions of dollars in future innovations, medicines, and consumer products.
Grant-Witness graph showing NSF wards essentially flat this fiscal year, under 1,000, whereas under previous administrations they were in 3-4,000 range by this time.
Painting with a medieval aesthetic showing a large sailing vessel being transported over wooden skids on land. Another two are being moved similarly in the background. The image is stamped "Ottoman Imperial Archives."
An empty bottle or Iroshizuku Kon-Peki on a red leather desk, next to a crimson Nakaya fountain pen being held up by a plastic crab figurine. The crab is a famous fountain pen accessory popularized by Ahnitol. This is one of the originals, accept no substitutes.
Drew Janda tweet — The haters said I couldn't do it. And they were correct. Honestly great call from the haters
The loss of continued, stable support for American sciences would further be devastating to our global economic competitiveness. The innovation and dynamism of American businesses rely on government-supported foundational research to create cutting-edge technologies like the ones identified above. But businesses do not fund a sufficient base of fundamental research on their own due to the scale, uncertain returns, and extended timelines involved. 38 Instead, multipronged, system-level government efforts that involve dedicated research funding are necessary to tackle the most pressing problems our nation faces, such as maintaining economic competitiveness and national security during tremendous
The OMB Directive and funding freezes have already had, and will continue to have, a devastating effect on the efforts of the agencies that administer Congressional funding and the researchers who leverage that funding to support the nation’s health, security, and economy. Americans will feel the effects of these harms for years to come: the OMB Directive and freezes have created lasting damage to America’s status as a leader in scientific innovation, resulting in a weakened pipeline of scientists and engineers that will deprive Americans of future scientific advancements. They ignore the benefits of stable, long-term research funding and threaten to deprive the nation of future fruits of today’s pursuits. Additional efforts to cut billions of dollars in congressionally authorized scientific research funding will only further amplify the harms imposed by the OMB Directive and subsequent freezes.