Vernon Ehlers: “I recognize the point that has been made by others, that the National Science Foundation employees are loyal, they are…”

“I recognize the point that has been made by others, that the National Science Foundation employees are loyal, they are hardworking, and it would be improper and not good practice to pass the amendment and reduce the amount available for salaries and expenses. That is true of many areas of Government. I am very familiar with the National Science Foundation. Indeed, I can verify that these are very good employees. They are loyal employees and they work very, very hard. But we are in a time where we are facing a $5 trillion national debt. We are facing interest payments of $300 billion per year. We have to tighten the belt. The question is, where is the belt going to be tightened? When it comes to the National Science Foundation, are we going to tighten the belt in grants or are we going to tighten it in administration? Those are issues we struggled with in the Committee on Science. We reached the conclusion that we should tighten the belt in a number of areas, but certainly also in the administrative expenses, salaries.”