The Boston Globe reports that congress critters from rural states are clamoring to expand an already existing program designed to shift NIH research grants away from deserving populated states (such as the Globe's Massachusetts) to rural states that could not win the grants on their own.
“It’s hard to compete against MIT or Harvard… . They’ve had their share. A lot of state colleges and universities all over the country, from Idaho to Maine, have some ideas too, and I think we should give these people from smaller schools in other states an opportunity,” said Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama, the top Republican on the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee. “It’s time to fix that.”
Shelby is among many members of Congress advocating for the federal government to increase the amount of money set aside in a special program for researchers in 23 largely rural states that traditionally have had a difficult time competing for NIH grants. Backers of increasing the money in that program want to expand the number of states that benefit from it, as well as boost the amount of money by up to 14 percent.
“There’s a battle between merit and egalitarianism,” said Dr. David Page, director of the Whitehead Institute, a prestigious research institution in Cambridge affiliated with MIT. “If the table is tilted, we know the table is going to be tilted away from us. It’s straight out of Robin Hood.”
via The Boston Globe
I personally might be a little more sympathetic toward Shelby's Alabama, but for two things. First, his state, as is true for most rural (particulary rural Southern) states, already receives far more federal money than it pays in. Of course those of us who live in the states that ship money to the South can't complain, because that wouldn't be nice; everyone knows it's okay to mock out New York or Massachusetts, but you can't say an unkind word about the hellhole that is Alabama, or you'll be an elitist. When Senator Shelby starts to advocate equalizing the ration of federal tax payment to federal money received then maybe we can talk about the NIH grants.
The second reason I have so little sympathy for Senator Shelby is this: when it comes to funding scientific research, I'm all for sending my money to states that believe in science. I'm sure there are smart people that are born and even grow up in Alabama, but most of them leave when they get the chance. When they leave, they don't head off to states like, say, South Carolina, where a little girl's dream of having the wooly mammoth named the state fossil is currently foundering on the insistence of a brain dead legislator that the resolution state that the mammoth was “created on the sixth day along with the beasts of the field”. And lets not forget the fact that so many of these states officially deny the fact of climate change. No, our hypothetical smart Alabaman is far more likely to head North to Boston, or some other place where he or she can pursue real science in an environment where brains are appreciated. So, here's hoping that the Senators from the sane states will tell the rural states to stuff it, and I say this even though I have a soft spot in my heart for the state of Maine, even if it keeps sending Susan Collins to the Senate.
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