Last night, I saw Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) speak.
(I joined this speakers club called the Oxonian Society -- which despite its name is not restricted to Oxford alumni. Why? What can I say. I was bored, and it is cheaper than internet dating. Hopefully, the people I meet will be more reliably intelligent and less reliably absurd.)
Anyway, Sen. Specter has been touring around touting his new book, Never Give In: Battling Cancer in the Senate which discusses his battle with Hodgkin's lymphoma while dealing with a variety of controversial political issues such as judicial confirmations and fights of warrant-less wiretapping.
Specter is an anomaly for his party. No doubt because of his recent run-in with death, he is vociferously pro-research, pro-NIH, and pro-stem cells -- rare though not unheard of for a Republican. This is good for us because he is also the ranking Republican on the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that -- with their counterparts in the House -- determines NIH budget.
After talking about his book and his battle with cancer, Specter accepted a little Q&A. I asked him: "Given that the NIH budget was increased by 0.5% this year -- a figure below scientific inflation -- what in your opinion are the prospects for increasing the budget more next year?"
Sadly this was his answer: "Bleak."
He went on to explain that he attempted to amend the omnibus spending bill for the budget this year to raise the NIH budget to 2-2.5 percent (I don't remember what he said there); however, this amendment was not passed. At the moment, the Senate and the House lack the political will to raise the budget. (Also, though he didn't talk about this, it may be different next year when there is a new President. But remember that the budget for next year will still probably be signed by this President.)
Despite this answer, there are two reasons for optimism:
1) Sen. Specter get's it. He also mentioned that if he stays in the Senate for another term he is likely to become the ranking Republican on the Appropriations committee generally. It is big for us to have a champion that wields that kind of clout.
2) Sen. Specter's example is telling for what message we should push in order to get Republicans to come over to the cause of science. I get the sense that his commitment comes primarily from his personal experiences with healthcare. This is the message we need to push. Science saves lives. I know that it is obvious, but if we can keep the issue out of the gray areas of ethical entanglement and focused square on improving human life we will do much better in getting even conservatives on board.
If we drill the notion of science leading to improved healthcare over and over again, the NIH budget will sell itself.
(Specter also suggested that he is planning a million person march of people afflicted with chronic illnesses in Washington. I think that sounds like a grand idea. Let politicians understand that research has a large constituency.)
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Unless I am sadly mistaken Specter has been a proponent of the NIH for a long time. He is not one of these "oh wait, you mean I might actually get sick and need some of the fruits of biomedical research? oh, nevermind my previous allegedly principled positions then" types...
Is that true? I am not familiar enough with his record to say.
Still, I think that the "push the benefits in healthcare" strategy is likely to be most effective with Republicans, even if it wasn't what brought Specter over in the first place.
"I get the sense that his commitment comes primarily from his personal experiences with healthcare."
No, DrugMonkey is correct. Specter has been pro-research for many years. He talks about it differently now that he's been through a major illness, but his basic stance hasn't changed.
Specter is a moderate Republican. I consider him a social moderate, fiscal conservative. Which in my view is what the traditional GOP was in general. He has bucked the party line quite vocally many times on issues of principle which I respect him for. I don't specifically know the history of his support for NIH, but I would be surprised if had at one point been opposed to it.
Although it isn't just from his personal experience, Senator Specter is best influenced by the "push the benefits in healthcare" strategy, as Jake puts it. I discussed this with his science advisor, who says that this is generally true of senators, and that things like the pipeline problem fall on deaf ears.
Unfortunately, I've been unable to find online sources for similar statements, so you'll have to take that anonymous assertion for what little it's worth.
I don't know why you think Republican need to 'come over' to the cause of science. NIH funding grew every year in real dollars between 1995 and 2005, and for five years in a row the annual growth was 10% or above. Over that period (but for 18 months in the Senate), both chambers had a Republican majority. We lost our majority in both chambers in 2006, and the budget has been in negative growth ever since.
For all the boosting the Dems get on scienceblogs.com, there's precious little evidence having the Dems in power is better for the science budget. Quite the contrary, in fact.
http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/354/16/1665/F1
Harbison is correct in the sense that biomedical science funding has been a bipartisan or, more correctly a nonpartisan issue. People on both sides of the aisle supporting the NIH for various reasons. It is only our most recent version of wackaloon right wingery that has been unfriendly to bioscience funding.
As to the last couple of years of Dem ascendancy in the legislature, well, not much anyone can do now that the cupboards are bare, eh?