Sequestration

Open Letter to Congress:

Dear Federal Representatives and Senators,
    I am writing this from my perspective on the chemical industry and academia.    
    Research advocacy groups are calling for avoidance of sequestration which would reduce the budgets of federal R&D agencies by about 8%.    
    Research advocacy members and academia in general strongly promote the use of public funds distributed by federal agencies to universities for "Research and Development". The obvious reasons are the federal agencies can use taxpayer funds to promote their special political projects, and the University researchers love to have taxpayer funds to use in playing with their toys, whether such playing is productive are not.
    If you have any doubt as to whether the present status of R&D funding to universities through public grants is productive, consider the billions of dollars that we have spent over many years and relate that to specific gains. I personally can't think of one.
    Therefore, I recommend you not only cut R&D spending to federal agencies by 8% but actually go much farther and eliminate all R&D spending accept for the military.
    Secondly, a package of custom duty suspensions favorable to the chemical industry was passed in 2010 and now expires at the end of December. The chemical industry is fighting hard to avoid the reapplication of these custom duties.
    The chemical industry in general has found manufacturing overseas favorable to their operations, primarily because of fewer regulations imposed by foreign governments, especially when they can import the products of such foreign manufacture into the US duty-free.
    The placement of such manufacturing overseas is unfavorable to the US, because it reduces the opportunity for US jobs and takes investment out of the US.
    Raw material supplies, especially natural gas, are now no less available and at low cost in the US than they are in foreign countries. Allowing the custom duty suspensions to expire will be favorable to the US economy. 
    However this is not to say that we should ignore the difficulties imposed on manufacturers through US government regulation. Congress must also act to reduce such regulations in order to justify forcing chemical industry manufacturing back to the US and also to attract foreign investment.