David Price: “I thank my friend for yielding. Madam Chair, I rise in strong opposition to these efforts to target the funding for the…”

“I thank my friend for yielding. Madam Chair, I rise in strong opposition to these efforts to target the funding for the National Science Foundation's Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences directorate (SBE). The world is changing rapidly, and we need quality research to help us understand how imminent and unforeseen changes in areas such as technology, climate, immigration, and the economy will affect our society and our future. And these things do have policy implications. We shouldn't be wasting hard-earned taxpayer money, in fact, on policy solutions that are not rooted in sound research, precisely the type of research that some of these efforts here today seek to curtail. As a result of research funded by the SBE directorate, for example, we are learning how to better respond to natural and economic disasters, how to improve the educational methods practiced in our Nation's classrooms, how to expand outreach to children regarding STEM education. We have learned how to increase the safety of our troops in combat, how to better reduce violence among our young people, and we have expanded our knowledge of how the human mind works through the BRAIN Initiative, led by Ranking Member Fattah and Chairman Wolf. In this era of Tea Party preeminence and so-called fiscal discipline at the expense of rational policy decisions, taking cheap shots at Federal programs and research projects has become a favorite indoor sport.…”