Proposed House Budget Would Reduce Federal R&D By An Estimated $442 Billion or 19% Over 10 Years
On Wednesday, April 19, Speaker McCarthy unveiled the Limit, Save, Grow Act of 2023, which would establish a set of discretionary spending caps over the next decade through FY 2033, allowing for only sub-inflation increases in overall spending. These caps would have the effect of reducing base discretionary spending by over $3.5 trillion below baseline over that time.
Soft law was never meant to be a permanent solution. Treating it as one, and letting the sandcastle stand in for the skyscraper indefinitely, is how we end up with a decade of voluntary commitments and no enforceable accountability to show for it.
Jobseekers, employees at smaller organizations, and local public workers need more than a weekend crash course in AI. They need practice choosing useful tasks, protecting data, testing outputs, and explaining where human judgment remains necessary.
“What excites me is that it’s very tempting to be very discouraged, and say, ‘Oh, we’ve got these archaic institutions that are calcified and you could never change them.’ But I think we’re in the middle of a technological revolution that will upend lots of things, and does provide a window.”
As Congress considers broader packages to advance critical minerals production and supply chain resilience, science diplomacy vehicles must be part of that conversation, not as an afterthought, but as an intentional and foundational pillar of any strategy.