If you don’t think reducing the national debt is vital to America’s long-term economic health, consider the following: Servicing the roughly $36 trillion debt is a major reason why consumer costs keep rising, interest rates remain high, economic growth forecasts have slipped and, most recently, market confidence in U.S. bonds was shaken.
Like or loathe DOGE, that debt is a reason why President Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency was created, why a “tariff war” has been declared and why many familiar government programs are on the chopping block — or at least scheduled for a haircut.
In Wisconsin, where manufacturing and agriculture are economic staples and innovation in health tech and other science sectors is world competitive, the combination of tariffs and cuts in research grants is a dangerous one-two punch.
Leaders in those sectors must double down on explaining why the cause of debt reduction is better served by performance-based tests and economic growth than indiscriminate cuts.
That theme was sounded in two recent state forums featuring leaders in health care and research who are worried that proposed cuts in National Institute of Health grants will reverse decades of progress in human, animal and plant health and stall economic growth while surrendering research and development leadership to China.
Speaking April 22 at a Tech Council Innovation Network luncheon in Madison, the director of the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery (WID) said NIH grant cuts and rescissions are already causing “unprecedented disruptions” to the state’s life science community.
WID Director Jo Handelsman said it’s not just the reality of reductions already underway, but the uncertainty surrounding planned research projects — which are typically conducted over time and require recruiting and retaining quality scientists.
It’s not just the effect on research institutions such as WID and UW-Madison, but the waste involved in marooning clinical trials and other research in mid-stream; the commercialization of emerging diagnostics and therapies that will never happen; and the economic harm that comes from new and reemerging threats to human and animal health.
Handelsman is a former White House science advisor who also chairs the Coalition for the Life Sciences, a decades-old national group that recently outlined its concerns in a letter to leaders of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the NIH.
That message was reinforced April 23 during an online panel discussion hosted by Wisconsin Health News, in which participants underscored the statewide nature of the threat.
Medical College of Wisconsin President Dr. John Raymond described cuts already underway, UW-Milwaukee professor Karyn Frick talked about threats to her Alzheimer’s disease research, and Universities of Wisconsin Vice President Johannes Britz outlined how reductions will touch every campus in the system.
Wisconsin researchers received about $700 million in the latest fiscal year from the NIH, with the UW-Madison, the Medical College of Wisconsin, other UW campuses, Marquette University and the Marshfield Clinic Health System being among the sites. About 2,700 clinical trials are spread among them, the group noted.
Panel members said that medical research in China is almost entirely financed by the government, while U.S. research became the world leader through a combination of public and private funding. They agreed surrendering American primacy would be a threat to the economy and human health.
Could American medical research be improved? Of course. Researchers often complain about red tape and other barriers to accomplishing their core work. Current NIH director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya has noted his agency is too slow and too risk averse. All that is likely true, but internal reforms tied to removing barriers and enhancing performance would be preferable to wholesale NIH cuts.
The same goes for the National Science Foundation, where the Trump administration has also canceled hundreds of research awards.
Debt reduction is a pressing need, but current remedies will likely hurt three of Wisconsin’s key industries — manufacturing, agriculture and science-based research. In the long run, it will be economic growth from those kinds of industries nationwide that reduces the national debt. Let’s keep that economic principle in mind.
