The Budget Control Act would be a hard hit to federal R&D investments in life sciences, aerospace, defense and more, with significant long-term consequences to economic growth.
The Budget Control Act enacted in the summer of 2011 requires automatic cuts in discretionary spending to occur starting in January of 2013, commonly known as the sequestration, in order to achieve $1.2 trillion in savings through 2021. Among the areas that would be hardest hit are federal R&D investments in life sciences, aerospace, defense and more, with significant long-term consequences to economic growth. In an upcoming ITIF report, Eroding Our Foundation: Sequestration, R&D, Innovation, and U.S. Economic Growth, Drs. Justin Hicks and Robert Atkinson analyze the eff