Collins on NECN: Federal budget cuts would run deep

Automatic NIH reduction harmful to Massachusetts research

January 28, 2013

Chancellor Michael F. Collins spoke out on New England Cable News yesterday against the automatic federal budget cuts slated to reduce National Institutes for Health funding by 8 percent on March 1 unless Congress acts beforehand.

“Sequestration is sort of a blunt tool to try to force the Congress to have some discipline about budget deficit and one of the meat cleavers that could fall down on our state would be rather draconian cuts in research funding,” Chancellor Collins told NECN host Kristy Lee on the DC Dialogue program.

The across-the-board federal cuts would significantly damage the state’s research enterprise, he said. Massachusetts would lose about $300 million in science and research funding.

“In Massachusetts we are very fortunate. We have outstanding scientists doing groundbreaking research,” he said. “If you look at per capita across the nation, we are the number one state in the nation in research funding.”

Watch the full interview: