NSF, quo vadis?

There is a lot going on.  Today, some words about NSF.

Yesterday Sethuraman Panchanathan, the director of the National Science Foundation, resigned 16 months before the end of his six year term.  The relevant Science article raises the possibility that this is because, as an executive branch appointee, he would effectively have to endorse the upcoming presidential budget request, which is rumored to be a 55% cut to the agency budget (from around $9B/yr to $4B/yr) and a 50% reduction in agency staffing.  (Note:  actual appropriations are set by Congress, which has ignored presidential budget requests in the past.)  This comes at the end of a week when all new awards were halted at the agency while non-agency personnel conducted "a second review" of all grants, and many active grants have been terminated.  Bear in mind, awards this year from NSF are already down 50% over last year, even without official budget cuts.  Update:  Here is Nature's reporting from earlier today.

The NSF has been absolutely critical to a long list of scientific and technological advances over the last 70 years (see here while it's still up).  As mentioned previously, government support of basic research has a great return on investment for the national economy, and it's a tiny fraction of government spending.  Less than three years ago, the CHIPS & Science Act was passed with supposed bipartisan support in Congress, authorizing the doubling of the NSF budget.  Last summer I posted in frustration that this support seemed to be an illusion when it came to actual funding.  

People can have disagreements about the "right" level of government support for science in times of fiscal challenges, but as far as I can tell, no one (including and especially Congress so far) voted for the dismantling of the NSF.  If you think the present trajectory is wrong, contact your legislators and make your voices heard.