People, Start Using Your Brains

I usually reserve this blog for my personal theories on scientific problems but today I wanted to address something that I find troubling in science and in society in general: government funding.

First I want to say that I am a Canadian civil servant and that these are my personal opinions and not that of the government.

Being a civil servant I understand that all levels of government have a finite amount of money to spread around to their various departments and agencies. They are also limited in what they can give to various institutions be they public or private. The government can only bring in so much money and it can only spend so much money. So there are times when the government can give more and there are times when the government has to cut back on what they can give out. It is simple math.

Today, in 2013, we live in a time where government revenues are shrinking. This means that the government cannot give as much as it did before. However, it seems that everyone who is hit by the cut in government spending takes it as a government attack on their institution, department or agency. You can read it in the news quite regularly, “Government Cuts Threaten Research…” or “Government Cuts Threaten Arts…” or “Government Cuts Threaten Education…” People hit by these budget crunches don’t see the big picture but instead choose to believe that the government is against what they do, so that is the reason behind the cuts. It is a sad fact of life, but the government cannot keep funding at the same levels when its revenue goes down!

The facts of life living in a recession don’t seem to penetrate into the thoughts of many but I thought at least someone with a bit more education, a more logical thinker like a scientist might be able to put these facts together and not complain. I apparently was wrong. Here is a blog where the scientist complains about an “astonishing” budget cut of 7.2%, calling it, “…one of the largest assaults on academia in Canadian history…” Apparently the writer seems to think that the government is making these cuts out of spite from knuckle draggers that are jealous of the smart scientists or perhaps a lack of knowledge about all the important work their university is doing. Not true. What hasn’t occurred to this scientist is that the government doesn’t have a magic bucket of unlimited money to throw around and they were just one of the many departments throughout Canada that has seen their budgets decrease. The budget in my department has decreased by 2% to 7% every year now for at least 3 years so I am shocked that it took this long for his/her department to see cuts only this recently.

I don’t have a PhD in math but even I could figure out that the government can only give out a finite amount of money. It would be nice if people got their head out of the sand and realized that government funding is not infinite and the government is not targeting you as punishment. These budget cuts are also not "attacks" on science or free speech or thought or whatever other crazy idea you might have, it is simply a decrease in funding. The last time I looked, you could still speak your mind, research what you wanted, write what you wanted and do what you wanted in public (legally of course) without the fear of retribution.

So please, people, start using your brains!