Surely you jest.

________________________________

From: Research Administration List on behalf of Charles Hathaway
Sent: Wed 1/26/2011 11:16 PM
To: xxxxxx@lists.healthresearch.org
Subject: Re: [RESADM-L] items of interest in President Obama's State of the
Union speech (last night)

I think research administrators should be interested in how the federal govt
balances its budget because we live in a country facing long-term financial
disaster and not because the policy changes might have a short-term impact on
our particular line of work.  Cut all budgets.  Raise all taxes.

Charlie
________________________________________
From: Research Administration List [xxxxxx@lists.healthresearch.org] on behalf
of Paul Tuttle [xxxxxx@JUNO.COM]
Sent: Wednesday, January 26, 2011 5:41 PM
To: xxxxxx@lists.healthresearch.org
Subject: [RESADM-L] items of interest in President Obama's State of the Union
speech (last night)

[Full text and video are available at
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/25/obama-state-of-the-union-_1_n_813478.ht
ml.]

Colleagues,

I don't know whether you watched President Obama's State of the Union speech
last night.  From my perspective, there were several statements pertinent to
research administrators, particularly university research administrators.

First was "an investment in research and development" in certain key
areas--biomedical research, information technology, clean energy, etc.--all
encapsulated within a focus on innovation.

Second was a focus on educational reform based on the premise that secondary and
postsecondary education are both significant drivers of innovation.

Third was a promised review of government regulations in order to reduce and/or
eliminate unnecessary burdens on businesses.  (A side note: One could argue that
higher education should be relieved of certain kinds of unnecessary burdens as
well, especially considering that immediately prior to this section of his
speech, President Obama recognized our nation's colleges and universities as
vitally important innovation engines.)

Fourth was a proposed five-year domestic spending freeze.  (President Obama's
freeze would be at a different level from levels suggested by his political
rivals on the Republican side of the aisle; no matter which level is selected,
though, a domestic spending freeze would appear to result in effective
stagnation of funding levels in many federal funding programs.)

Fifth was his promise that his administration "will develop a proposal to merge,
consolidate, and reorganize the federal government" to develop a more efficient
government (I'm paraphrasing the ideas around this quote).  His examples were of
multiple federal agencies that have similar or identical mission components
and/or areas of responsibility.  This has obvious implications for certain
federal funding programs, especially when considered as relatively broad
categories such as "health" or "education."

His sixth and final point that to my mind may affect research administrators is
his promise to veto any bills that include earmarks.

Please keep in mind that this is just my personal opinion of the statements
President Obama made in last night's State of the Union speech that I felt may
affect us research administrators.  Still, I thought these statements were
significant enough to be extracted and discussed on professional listservs like
this one.

Best,

Paul Tuttle
xxxxxx@juno.com or (336) 692-3289 [cell]

======================================================================
 Instructions on how to use the RESADM-L Mailing List, including
 subscription information and a web-searchable archive, are available
 via our web site at http://www.healthresearch.org
<http://www.healthresearch.org/>  (click on the
 "LISTSERV" link in the upper right corner)
======================================================================

======================================================================
 Instructions on how to use the RESADM-L Mailing List, including
 subscription information and a web-searchable archive, are available
 via our web site at http://www.healthresearch.org
<http://www.healthresearch.org/>  (click on the
 "LISTSERV" link in the upper right corner)
======================================================================

The information in this e-mail is intended only for the person to whom it is
addressed. If you believe this e-mail was sent to you in error and the e-mail
contains patient information, please contact the Partners Compliance HelpLine at
http://www.partners.org/complianceline . If the e-mail was sent to you in error
but does not contain patient information, please contact the sender and properly
dispose of the e-mail.

======================================================================
 Instructions on how to use the RESADM-L Mailing List, including
 subscription information and a web-searchable archive, are available
 via our web site at http://www.healthresearch.org (click on the
 "LISTSERV" link in the upper right corner)
======================================================================