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Ellen Baum lives in Bowdoinham and has spent her entire career supporting a range of high-quality science.
For the second year in a row, President Donald Trump has proposed significant cuts to the budgets of the most prominent U.S. science agencies. The steepest of these would be made to two agencies close to my heart: the Environmental Protection Agency, where I never worked but whose science I relied on for my entire career, and the National Science Foundation (NSF), which has supported decades of research that has made the U.S. a global leader in science. Under the White House proposal, the budgets of both would fall by more than 50% in 2027 compared with their current levels.
Despite the fact that it is Congress and not the president that determines the federal budget and decides how it should be spent and that last year Congress rejected the administration’s requests for huge cuts (including science) and restored funding for many of the programs the White House sought to eliminate, in April the NSF wasted no time obeying in advance. Instead of waiting for congressional guidance, the NSF used Trump’s early April budget proposal to fast tract shuttering of NSF’s Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE).
Why do I care about Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences? In a broad sense, these are the disciplines that contribute fundamental knowledge, methods, and tools to advance so much of what Americans consider meaningful: health, welfare, national defense, progress in science, and robust U.S. business and industry.
Drilling down deeper, their work absolutely helps Maine’s aging community. Maine’s seniors have benefited from the social science research that responds to the realities of our state’s aging population, namely barriers to healthy aging, demands on family caregivers, the rise of social isolation, and the accessibility of health care at home. Much of the knowledge and insight we have about aging comes from social science research, including SBE research. It is SBE research that uncovered the role the brain plays in loneliness, and with this information devised needed research and interventions. Loneliness is front and center in Maine’s aging communities, so mechanisms to understand and deal with it matter — a lot.
Defunding SBE, won’t make loneliness go away. What it will do is expand the gulf between our understanding of the emotional, cognitive, and physical health consequences of social isolation and our ability to build connections to support healthy aging. Each one of us will be worse off with this head in the sand approach.
There are endless examples of the harms from the president’s proposed budget. I am calling on Congress to step up and reject the FY 2027 budget request for federal science agencies. Then, beyond restoring funding, Congress needs to exercise its oversight authority to stop NSF leadership from obeying in advance by eliminating the SBE Directorate without explanation, notice, or stakeholder engagement.
This work can’t happen fast enough.