Which political celebration gives extra federal funding for science? Given climate-denial rhetoric, assaults on experience, the scale of presidency, and culture-war battles over analysis, many People could consider that Democrats assist science and that Republicans don’t.
However this isn’t what now we have discovered. In analysis printed final fall in Science with our colleagues Nic Fishman and Leah Rosenstiel, we analyzed a complete database of federal science appropriations, collected from presidents’ price range requests, from Home and Senate committee payments, and from ultimate, enacted annual appropriations from 1980 to 2020. The info embrace 171 price range accounts throughout 27 businesses, comparable to Nationwide Institutes of Well being, NASA, Nationwide Science Basis, and CDC, in addition to Pentagon R&D packages.
When Republicans managed the Home or the presidency, science funding was considerably greater—on common, about $150 million extra per price range account beneath a Republican Home than a Democratic one, and $100 million extra beneath a Republican president than a Democratic one. These variations held up throughout dozens of statistical exams and weren’t defined by the general measurement of the price range or financial situations. We discovered considerably greater appropriations for NIH beneath Republican management, greater funding for CDC beneath Republican presidents, and marginally greater assist for NASA and NSF.
For the previous yr, now we have puzzled if our paper had documented one thing purely historic—a sample from a Republican Get together that not exists. The Trump administration proposed slashing NIH by about 40 p.c. It tried to cap indirect-cost restoration—the portion of federal grants that reimburses universities for bills comparable to amenities, compliance, safety, and gear—at 15 p.c, threatening billions in analysis infrastructure. It stalled grants; cleared out company management; imposed political approval necessities on funding choices, comparable to requiring senior political appointees to log off on grants earlier than they might be awarded and terminating packages addressing racial well being gaps; and applied focused funding freezes at specific universities. The postwar compact between authorities and science gave the impression to be collapsing.
However Congress—beneath Republican management in each chambers—has systematically rejected the administration’s most excessive proposals.
Within the funding invoice that President Trump signed into regulation this month, lawmakers not solely declined to chop NIH’s price range by 40 p.c; they as an alternative elevated it by roughly $415 million. They added focused funding for most cancers analysis, Alzheimer’s illness, and the BRAIN Initiative for the event of neurotechnologies. The ultimate quantity: $48.7 billion—nearly unchanged from the prior yr.
Simply as necessary, Congress included detailed language constraining govt overreach. It reiterated that NIH can’t unilaterally change how indirect-cost charges work. It restricted the company’s capability to shift funds towards multiyear awards that crowd out new grants. It required month-to-month briefings to Congress on grant awards and terminations to make sure the allotted cash is definitely being distributed. And it directed NIH to proceed to professionalize the hiring of institute administrators, with exterior scientific enter and congressional oversight.
Related patterns maintain elsewhere. NASA faces a 1.6 p.c lower fairly than the 24 p.c the administration sought. The NSF price range dropped 3.4 p.c as an alternative of 57 p.c.
The price range accounts within the database we analyzed observe the recurring working bills allotted throughout all elements of the federal authorities for science and analysis, together with science carried out by grant-making and contracting with companies. They don’t observe outgoing grants to researchers immediately, so the numbers don’t seize the sorts of funding freezes the Trump administration imposed on universities together with Harvard, Columbia, and Penn.
Even so, the Republican-led Congress behaved rather more like our knowledge predicted than like what Trump requested. The appropriators funded science, protected analysis infrastructure, and asserted management over how businesses function. On this regard, they did what Republicans in Congress have carried out for many years.
The Trump administration’s hostility to science is actual and deeply regarding. Nevertheless it has not—to this point—reset the Republican Get together’s place on science funding in the best way that Trump reshaped GOP stances on commerce, immigration, or international alliances.
Science funding in the US has been sustained not simply by partisan enthusiasm but in addition by institutional construction. In our knowledge, funding tracked with management of the Home and the presidency, however not the Senate. That’s as a result of the Home majority controls the appropriations course of. And Republican appropriators appear to have as soon as once more funded science not regardless of their priorities however due to them. Financial competitiveness, technological management, and nationwide safety all relaxation on a basis of scientific development.
This consequence appeared unbelievable six months in the past—to many, together with us, it appeared practically not possible. This wasn’t a standard coverage disagreement. It was a stress take a look at. And the establishment is holding. The 2026 funding bundle highlights the dedication of the Republicans in Congress to persistently fund science.
Staffing losses are actual, management vacancies create drift, and political interference in grant choices stays a critical menace. Budgets alone don’t assure a functioning analysis system. However treating the GOP as monolithically anti-science dangers alienating a coalition that has traditionally sustained federal analysis. Scientists who wish to defend funding ought to spend much less time lamenting Republican hostility and extra time participating Republican appropriators—significantly within the Home, the place the funding choices get made.
Science got here beneath assault, and a Republican Congress pushed again. That’s not an aberration.
