Consortium of Social Sciences Associations, Washington Update

PRESSURE FOR VETERANS SPENDING LEAVES NSF WITH REDUCED FUNDING

On July 20, faced with both intense election-year pressure to spend more on Veterans and in particular, their health care, and an inadequate allocation from the budget process, the House VA, HUD, and Independent Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee felt compelled to reduce funding for the other agencies under its jurisdiction, including the National Science Foundation (NSF). Two days later, the full Appropriations Committee ratified the subcommittee’s decisions. Subcommittee Chair Rep. James Walsh (R-NY) called the process “brutally fair.”

For FY 2005, the panel recommended that NSF receive $5.467 billion, a reduction from the FY 2004 appropriation of $5.578 billion. The 2 percent decline of $111 million, if it holds through the rest of the funding process, will be the first reduction in NSF funding since FY 1996, and a complete reversal of the high hopes for doubling the Foundation’s budget projected in the 2002 authorization act. The Bush Administration had called for a three percent increase in its FY 2005 budget request.

The Research and Related Activities Account, which includes funding for the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences (SBE) Directorate, was allocated $4.152 billion, down from the FY 2004 appropriation of $4.251 billion. Some of this reduction occurred because the Subcommittee transferred $26 million in administrative costs to the Salaries and Expenses account (these were funds that paid for rotating NSF staff under the Intergovernmental Personnel Act). The Committee also rejected the Administration’s plan to move $80 million of the Math and Science Partnership Program (MSP) into the research account, leaving it in the Education and Human Resources (EHR) directorate.

Unlike in recent years, the appropriators did not designate specific dollars for the directorates. They left the allocation of the research account funding up to NSF, with some exceptions. NSF will submit a proposed spending plan 30 days following the enactment of the bill.

The EHR directorate was reduced from $939 million in FY 2004 to $843 million for FY 2005. However, this figure is $71.6 million above the request because of the proposed shift of the MSP program. The Committee did reduce MSP from $139 million to $82.5 million, since there is a $120 million increase in the part of the program funded by the Department of Education. The panel provided no funding for the Workforce for the 21^st Century program.

The Committee’s actions have not been well received. The science community is unhappy with the NSF allocation. However, perhaps much more important are the facts that House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) has vowed to stop the bill if the $1 billion cut from NASA’s budget is not restored and President Bush has threatened to veto the legislation. In addition, Veterans’ groups believe the $1.5 billion boost for health care is inadequate and they are demanding more.

Thus, the bill faces an uncertain future. The Senate will not mark up the legislation until September. The bill may reach the House floor early in that month, as well. Following those actions, things are unclear. Some of the key players, namely Walsh and Appropriations Committee Chairmen Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AS) and Rep. Bill Young (R-FL) are facing term limits and will have to relinquish their current committee leadership positions after this Congress. They would like to see the process work in their final year at the helm. Yet, it appears the bill will most likely become part of some Omnibus appropriations legislation or long-term Continuing Resolution, perhaps at last year’s funding levels. Stay tuned!

HEALTH AND RETIREMENT FOCUS OF COSSA CAPITOL HILL BRIEFING

As the baby boomer generation moves closer to retirement, questions continue for policymakers in Washington regarding the future viability of Social Security and Medicare. With this in mind, COSSA invited 5 distinguished social scientists that

have led and used the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) to discuss these issues at a Congressional Briefing on Capitol Hill, July 14.

People are now living much longer relative to the time when the Social Security Act was signed into law. In addition, health issues such as chronic illness have now moved to the forefront of medical and social science research. The HRS is a cooperative effort by the University of Michigan and funded by the National Institute on Aging that has tracked approximately 27,000 people since 1992. David Weir, co-principal investigator (PI) of the study from the University of Michigan explained the rationale for the HRS. What was needed, he said, “was a different kind of data set that would allow us to understand the decisions, the choices, and the behaviors that people make in response to policy so that we could better understand aging and better understand how the population would be likely to respond…” The goal of the study is to follow people over time, enabling scientists to discover how decisions made by retirees and the soon-to-be-retired play out in the context of family, career, overall health, and socioeconomic condition. The study is a multidisciplinary effort among social scientists, medical experts, and public health professionals.

Weir estimated that based upon HRS data, there will be only two workers per retiree in the year 2030, when the entire baby boomer generation is retired. This will lead to severe strains on the Federal system of support for the elderly. He pointed out that even as this generation dies out, the problem will remain due to the resulting changes in the fiscal balances of several programs, such as Social Security and Medicare. These programs, according to Weir’s analysis, will respectively be at deficits of 6 percent and 12 percent of taxable payroll by 2080.

For this reason, the HRS is adding “early boomers” to its pool of respondents in 2004 – those who were born between 1948 and 1953. They join earlier cohorts of 50 to 60 year olds and 70 to 90 year olds when first interviewed in 1992. The “Children of the Depression” were added in 1998 and the study will be joined by a group of “mid-boomer” respondents in 2010.

The Age of Retirement Increases, Perhaps Permanently

Robert Willis, a professor of economics at the University of Michigan and another co-PI of the HRS, discussed how this generation of baby boomers is reversing many past trends. For example, there has been a strong shift toward higher educational attainment – over 60 percent of the boomers have a college education.

One of the most noteworthy trends for the future of public policy, Willis suggested, is the tendency toward later retirement. According to Willis, the downward shift in labor force participation by the elderly that had begun in 1950 had started to slow and reverse itself by 1985. The HRS study shows that by age 69, eighty-two percent of people are retired from their main job, with significant spikes in retirement entry at ages 62 and 65. The HRS was unique in its analysis of expected retirement age and actual retirement age. Participants were asked what the probability is that they will be working past the age of 62. According to Willis, “researchers have found that, on average, these subjective expectations tend to be fairly accurate, and indeed, a number of researchers have found a strong relationship between measures of expected retirement and actual retirement using HRS data.”

According to the HRS results for people of all education levels, there is a marked increase in the contingent of those expecting to work past the age of 65. If the correlation between expected retirement age and actual retirement age is as strong as researchers observed, then it looks as if the upward trend in labor force participation may be here to stay for the foreseeable future.

Michael Hurd, the senior economist and director of the RAND Center for the Study of Aging, showed that single retirees lose their savings more rapidly than couples (who generally have significantly more wealth accumulated). The average household income is $20,000 by the age of 85. However, couples continue to accumulate wealth, while dissaving among singles accelerates to four percent a year at age 85.

Hurd also suggested that baby boomers will not be able to rely on their inheritance to carry them through retirement. He contends that the data demonstrate that parents’ bequests to the boomers are not nearly as high as the popular press has previously indicated. While the mean bequest amount is approximately $47,000, the median is drastically lower, at $7,700. This is indicative of a skewed wealth distribution.

Linda Waite, from the University of Chicago and co-director of the Alfred P. Sloan Center on Parents, Children & Work and the Center on Aging in Chicago, discussed the importance of family for older Americans. She found that women, especially unmarried or divorced women, are particularly disadvantaged in their retirement years. In addition to the effects of quickly diminishing wealth that Hurd pointed out, older women are more likely to be poor and have failing health than their married cohorts.

Waite found that because of the disparity in average life expectancies for men and women, men are more likely to live with their wives until they die. In contrast, from the ages of 75-84, only 38 percent of women are still married and unwidowed. This situation is additionally magnified for older African American women. Another significant finding relates to older women’s perception of their own health. According to Waite, “older married women are much more likely to rate their health as very good or excellent…and unmarried women are much more likely than married women to rate their health as fair or poor.”

In addition, unmarried or divorced women find it difficult to receive Social Security benefits in their old age. As Waite explained, “Social Security was originally set up to provide support for widows and orphans, so women who are married and have never worked have access to Social Security as the wife of a covered worker…So spouses and widows of covered workers get more, and divorced women and never married women are especially disadvantaged.” The baby boomer generation’s situation is compounded by the fact that 30 percent of them are separated or divorced at the same age that only 18 percent of the “war babies” generation were.

Kenneth Langa, a professor of internal medicine at the University of Michigan, also underscored the need for family care in an aging population, especially in light of the fact that approximately 10 percent of adults aged 65 and over and 50 percent of those 85 and over suffers from dementia or Alzheimer’s disease. Langa pointed out that “with the large growth in the number of older individuals in the coming decades, the number of Alzheimer’s cases is expected to triple over the next 50 years from about 4.5 million cases today to about 13.2 million in 2050.” This, as someone in the audience noted, assumes no significant medical breakthroughs, such as a vaccine.

Patients with dementia may require over 40 hours per week of care and approximately $17,000 per year, on average, most of which is provided through the patient’s family, Langa said. Moreover, the disparities between women and men continue to be pronounced. Older disabled women are far more likely to have unmet care needs than men. According to Langa’s analysis, 28 percent of older disabled women are married versus 74 percent of men, and 45 percent of older disabled women were living alone in contrast to only 17 percent of men. The poverty rates for older disabled women are also far higher than those for men, with 24 percent living in the lowest wealth quartile in comparison to only 11 percent of men living in the same quartile. However, this care disparity between women and men persists even when the women are married.

Langa remained optimistic that the risk factors for dementia across socio-economic and demographic groups would be more discernable as the Aging, Demographics, and Memory Study (ADAMS) evolves until its 2005 completion. In addition, results from this study will show the distribution of dementia patients who are receiving new medications and their benefits as well as the effects of Medicare policy changes: “The HRS and ADAMS will allow researchers to examine trends in the substitution between publicly funded care, such as home care, and

An edited transcript of the session will be available in the near future. If you would like a copy, please write to cossa@cossa.org.

Ten years after the Clinton Administration’s Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) gave us Science in the Public Interest, the Bush Administration’s OSTP has released Science for the 21^st Century. The 1994 report, with Vice President Al Gore heading the press conference, attempted to provide a guide to science in the post-cold war era. The 2004 report, produced by the National Science and Technology Council, an inter-agency group coordinated by OSTP, was introduced by President Bush’s Science Adviser and OSTP director John Marburger, with support from National Science Foundation interim director Arden Bement and NIH Director Elias Zerhouni. The ghost of Vannevar Bush, responsible for America’s post-World War II science policy apparatus, loomed over both reports.

As Marburger indicated, Science for the 21^st Century stresses the “responsibility of the Federal government toward science and technology.” The inter-agency process that produced the report began in the fall of 2002. The finished product explains how the Federal investment sets the stage for “innovative solutions to today’s major challenges, provides the foundation for economic growth and development, and enhances our quality of life.”

1) Promote discovery and sustain the excellence of the Nation’s scientific research enterprise;

3) Invest in and accelerate the transformation of science into national benefits; and

4) Achieve excellence in science and technology education and in workforce development.

The document also notes that “the role of the social and behavioral sciences in the Federal research portfolio is becoming increasingly important in a rapidly changing world.” Bement reiterated this in his comments noting the research of social, behavioral, and economic (SBE) scientists on the impacts of change and how humans adapt to change (the report discusses NSF’s Human and Social Dynamics priority area as playing a significant role on these topics). Furthermore, Bement echoed many of Marburger’s past statements in noting the importance of the SBE sciences to the intellectual as well as the ethical challenges posed by the research conducted and the products generated at the nanoscale level of science and engineering.

A number of SBE examples are included in the sidebars that illustrate the report. These include: how the use of game theory by economists produced insights on market behavior, particularly high-stakes auctions; how social networks among people can be the most important factor in group processes and information flows; how new tools such as geographic information systems contributed to antiterrorism efforts, epidemiology, public safety and education; and how breakthroughs in research on language and learning – not only understanding the historical development of written languages, but also the use of new brain imaging techniques – allowed greater comprehension of how people acquire and organize new knowledge.

Also highlighted in the report is the Institute of Education Sciences in the U.S. Department of Education and its attempt to institute “rigorous research on practices that improve academic achievement and the effectiveness of education programs and policies.”

In his remarks, Zerhouni noted the importance of the convergence of fields, the increasing scope of investments (i.e. larger projects), the need for flexibility and adaptability, the continued importance of accountability, the need to relate scientific outcomes to national needs, and the necessity of training the next generation of our nation’s science and technology workforce.

Possible Politicization of Archivist Nomination May Delay Confirmation

On July 22, the Senate Committee on Government Affairs, chaired by Senator Susan Collins (R-ME), held a confirmation hearing on the nomination of Allen Weinstein for the office of United States Archivist. As Senators Richard Durbin (D-IL) and Joe Lieberman (D-CT) pointed out during the course of the hearing, which was sparsely attended by committee Republicans, the Archivist nominations have rarely – if ever – attracted as much attention as Weinstein’s.

As Collins stated, the Archivist “provides guidance and assistance to Federal officials on the management of records to determine their retention and disposition, and he must decide where to place those records that have sufficient value to warrant their continued preservation.” In addition, he must deal with the challenges of storage space, safely archiving electronic documents, making grants to non-federal institutions to help support historical documentation, and according to the core mission and original purpose of the National Archives and Records Administration, he must ensure “for the citizens and the public servant, for the President and for the Congress and for the Courts, ready access to essential evidence.” The position is a lifetime appointment, and should an acting Administration wish to change Archivists, it is required by law to notify Congress with its reasons for doing so.

John Carlin, the current Archivist and a Clinton appointee, has submitted his resignation, effective when the new nominee is confirmed. However, there has been a great deal of controversy surrounding this resignation and whether it was driven by the current Administration. Further deepening the questions about this nomination’s politicization is George W. Bush’s Executive Order 13233, which limits the access to Presidential documents originally mandated by the Presidential Records Act of 1978. This Executive Order came at a time when the George H.W. Bush Administration’s documents are being prepared for release in January and very little is known about the interaction between the Administration and the Archivist regarding the implementation of E.O.13233. As the Washington Post reported on July 26, “Critics have suggested Bush may have wanted a new archivist to help keep his or his father’s sensitive presidential records under wraps.”

The groundbreaking moment in the hearing came when Levin revealed a July 22 letter sent to him from current Archivist Carlin, stating that “the Administration initially approached me. On Friday, December 5, 2003, the Counsel to the President called me and told me the Administration would like to appoint a new Archivist. I asked why and there was no reason given.” The correspondence was in response to a letter sent by Levin, asking a number of questions regarding the circumstances surrounding the resignation. Levin then requested that Chairman Collins send a letter to the White House on behalf of the Committee, requesting an explanation as to why Carlin was asked for his resignation and why there was no notification to Congress, as required by law.

When questioned by the Democratic Senators on the panel about his knowledge of Carlin’s resignation, Weinstein maintained that he was completely unaware of Carlin’s situation, and did not discuss it with Administration officials. In fact, few on the Senate Committee questioned Weinstein’s credentials or qualifications during the course of the hearing. Senators Durbin, Levin, and committee ranking member Lieberman praised his distinguished career and emphasized that the point at issue was not the nominee himself, but the way in which the previous Archivist was vacating the position. According to Levin, the possible politicization of this nomination could compromise the “independence of the Archivist’s office.”

According to the National Coalition for History’s Washington Update, the confirmation may well be delayed past the November elections, depending upon how the Administration responds to what may amount to a charge of violating the 1984 law establishing the Archives’ independence.

COSSA would like to thank the National Coalition for History for contributing to this report.

Boaz Ganor, Executive Director of the International Policy Institute for Counter Terrorism in Herzliya, Israel, laid out the case for the rationality of suicide bombing at this year’s National Institute of Justice (NIJ) Research and Evaluation Conference held in Washington, DC from July 19-21. He argued that from the point of view of the bomber and the terrorist organization, the tactic – used all over the world, but most significantly by Palestinians against Israel – is the result of rational decision-making. Utilizing a cost/benefit analysis, Ganor asserted that the benefits to the perpetrators are great.

He began by noting that the bombers do not think of themselves as committing suicide, but as martyrs to the cause. Ganor suggested that because the bomber believes that his act guarantees entrance to heaven and that great rewards await him there — including eternal life and the promised 72 virgins — there is individual rationality in deciding to commit the martyrdom. In addition, the bomber has followed what he believes to be a religious commandment, he will be remembered as a great patriot, and his family will reap economic rewards.

From the point of view of the terrorist organization, suicide bombing is rational because: 1) it can inflict significant casualties; 2) it ensures broad media coverage for the cause; 3) there is no need to plan an escape route; 4) once the target is reached, there is a high probability of success; and 5) there is low immediate risk to other terrorists in the organization.

Ganor suggested that thinking of these bombings as rational acts allows Israel and others faced with these problems to better deal with them. He argued that the fence Israel is building has reduced the success rate of the bombers. Other solutions, he noted, could include fighting the religious legitimacy of the attacks. Ganor stipulated that this has to be done by moderate Muslims. In addition, drying up the source of funds supporting the bombings and greater international cooperation through intelligence and research are other necessary actions.

Speaking on the same panel, Israel Barak-Glantz, Chief Scientist of the Ministry of Public Security in Israel, laid out what he called a “Crade to Grave” research agenda to examine the social, organizational, psychological, and operational aspects of suicide terrorism.

Among the variables that need study is the chain of assistance that includes planning, recruitment and retention, technical support, public relations, and the escort/smuggler. We must look at suicide bombing as a “rolling event,” he argued, involving multiple actors and activities, all of which can provide insight to those trying to halt them.

A representative of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which has just released a solicitation for a Center to examine the social and behavioral aspects of terrorism (see UPDATE July 12, 2004), was scheduled as a respondent, but was unable to attend.

Also speaking at the conference was Russ Whitehurst, director of the Institute of Education Sciences at the U.S. Department of Education. Whitehurst addressed the need for basing public policy on scientific evidence, rather than ideology. Since Whitehurst has been a foremost advocate for this type of method (see his presentation to the COSSA Annual Meeting, UPDATE November 17, 2003), they felt that he could provide the justice researchers with a comprehensive perspective on it.

Whitehurst maintained that Randomized Control Experiments are the “gold standard” of rigorous research methodologies, suggesting that it is time to move beyond description and associations toward causal analysis in education science. Whitehurst also cited IES’s “What Works Clearinghouse” as a significant activity that provides research results to practitioners (see www.whatworks.ed.gov). Deborah Daniels, Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Justice Programs (OJP) and another proponent of evidence-based policy, had earlier announced that she hopes to emulate this with an OJP clearinghouse of a similar nature.

Finally, two panels at the conference examined longitudinal studies on crime and delinquency and their impacts. Rolf Loeber of Carnegie-Mellon, David Huzinga of the University of Colorado, and Terence Thornberry reported on a two-decade, three-city study (Pittsburgh, Denver, and Rochester, NY) of the causes and correlates of delinquency.

Loeber and Huzinga were interested in why juveniles who commit crimes refrain from doing so as they grow older. Citing the work of John Laub and Rob Sampson (see UPDATE August 11, 2003), they wanted to move beyond “social forces” explanations to look at individual cases and their reasons for abandoning crime. Both researchers found that gang involvement, as well as individual and peer substance abuse during adolescence were key factors in keeping juvenile delinquents involved in a life of crime. Thornberry also looked at the life courses of children with teen mothers. He found that a mother who gives birth during her teens and remains under-educated creates difficulties not only for her child, but also for all subsequent children born after her teenage years.

Appearing on a second panel, Thornberry spoke about the importance of longitudinal studies and their ability to provide accurate pictures of criminal behavior. He emphasized the value of “sleeper effects,” where longitudinal studies are able to pick up the delayed outcome of a treatment that may have been missed or misread in a typical cross-sectional study.

On the same panel, Daniel Nagin of Carnegie Mellon discussed some results from the Montreal Longitudinal Study, shepherded by the University of Montreal’s Richard Tremblay. Nagin suggested that we should examine aggressive actions in young children as a possible trigger for the adolescent onset of criminal behavior. According to his analysis, “late onset violence” is rare, which indicates that these behaviors must be triggered at an earlier age.

After months of in-depth discussions by the National Children’s Study Advisory Committee (NCSAC) and the many entities involved in planning the National Children’s Study (NCS), the sampling process that will be used to recruit participants into the study was announced by National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Director Duane Alexander and the Interagency Coordinating Committee (See Update, January 27, 2003; October 7, 2002).

NCS, a longitudinal study, is designed to acknowledge the symbiotic relationship between children and their environment. It is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the NICHD, the National Institute of Environmental Health Diseases (NIEHS), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). NCS is designed to follow approximately 100,000 women, 18-35 years of age, who are as early in pregnancy as possible in mid-fiscal year 2005. Coming from a wide range of representative backgrounds, the women will be monitored for three years to determine the consequences of environment on the pregnancy and the

children. The study will follow the children to 21+ years of age, recruiting from 50 sites over the country.

After two days of discussion at its June 28 -29 meeting, the NCSAC agreed that the magnitude of the study, the expectations for the results, and the knowledge that will be extracted from the study required that a national probability sampling strategy be used. The sampling strategy that was agreed upon will be a multistage approach, with clusters “designed to enhance both efficiency and the ability to measure chemical, physical, and social characteristics of communities as well as of Study participants.”

In order to allow for evaluation of the challenges and potential strengths of integrating a central coordinating center and the regional centers, sampling and enrollment in the NCS will be implemented in incremental stages that will allow for adjustment of the sampling approach to attain the strongest overall design .

According to Alexander, whose Institute has the lead in planning the study, “the multidisciplinary nature of the study necessitates that our approach not come from one single tradition or discipline. This is a bold study that requires a bold study design.” For more information about NCS see: http://nationalchildrensstudy.gov

Howard University, Binghamton University, and the Association of American Geographers are co-sponsoring a conference on Race/Ethnicity and Place that will take place September 16-18, 2004 on Howard’s campus in Washington, DC.

The conference will explore the connections between race/ethnicity and place in an interdisciplinary setting that will include paper presentations, posters, plenary sessions, and a luncheon keynote address. Speakers will address such issues as: changing cultural landscapes, spatial immigration patterns, disparities in employment, health, housing, and race/ethnicity and place in educational curricula. A pre-conference workshop will provide instruction for Mapping Racial/Ethnic Data on the Internet using Census 2000 statistics. For more information about the conference, go to: www.aag.org/meeting/p-lace.html.

The COSSA Update will be taking a short hiatus from publication during the month of August while Congress is out of session. We look forward to bringing you new social science developments from the Washington, DC policy making community in September, when Congress reconvenes.