First-Hand:Lessons from Washington: The R&D Pork Barrel

Submitted by A. Michael Noll, December 21, 2024

My career made a sudden change in 1971 when I left Bell Labs where is was preforming speech and computer graphics research and went to Washington to join the staff of the Office of Science and Technology in the Executive Office of the President – whose Director was also the President’s Science Adivsor (then Dr. Edward E. David, Jr.). For the first months, I was in over my head and had much to learn. One lesson I did learn was that nearly every one belongs to a special-interest group that benefits from the Federal spigot of dollars – the pork barrel.

It seems that nearly every group had its own special-interest source of support in Washington. As some examples: farmers had the Department of Agriculture; environmentalists had the Environmental Protection Agency; industry had the Department of Commerce; health had the National Institutes of Health; and the space industry had the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Billions of dollars of federal funds were channeled thorough these agencies to the special-interest groups. Any attempts to reduce funding or eliminate an agency would result in cries of disaster from the special-interest groups. Once a spigot is created it cannot be closed.

I learned that government seems to favor supporting losers – losing companies, losing industries, and simply losers in general. Winners do not want government support with all its conditions. If we truly believe in competition, then we must accept that there will be losers, from which better winners will emerge.

Even the academic research community was a special-interest group with its own funding source: the National Science Foundation (NSF). The academic research community believed that the solution to nearly every problem was more funding for more research, provided by the Federal government, and ultimately, the taxpayers.

My background before going to Washington was in research at Bell Telephone Laboratories, Inc. (Bell Labs) – a very different model than the academic research funded through the NSF with its peer-review process. At Bell Labs, proposals were not required and written for research projects, and management had broad authority to make decisions on what to support. The Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) of the Defense Department had a similar model in which the best people at the best intuitions were supported by program mangers with authority. That was a big factor in the invention and development of the ARPNET – today’s Internet.

The program heads at the NSF were usually from academe, and would return to their academics positions after being at the NSF for a while. It was an incestuous insider operation. I questioned it, which made me unpopular at the NSF, and as a result of my unorthodox opinions, the NSF declared me as “persona-non-gratta” in the NSF building,

Research proposals submitted to the NSF were peer-reviewed – a lengthy process that risked mediocrity and not creative novel approaches. Perhaps more time and effort went into the writing of the proposals then into the actual conduct of the research. One of my suggestions (tongue in cheek) was that the NSF instead of peer-review, simply print a number of checks and give them out on a lottery basis to academics. The NSF internal bureaucracy could then be greatly reduced, and academics would have more time to perform their research and be innovative – avoiding the mediocrity of lengthy peer review and proposals.

I had nothing against peer review, but there were other models for supporting research, such as that used at Bell Labs and at the ARPA. Larry Roberts was the program manager at ARPA for the packet switching that formed the basis for the ARPANET and Dick Bolt at BBN developed the switches for the nodes – they had individual authority to pick and support the best people. ARPA was so successful that a CARPA – for Civilian Advanced Research Projects Agency -- was suggested in the 1970s, but not created.

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) within the Executive Office of the President evaluated and controlled the Federal budget. One of the budget examiners (Hugh Loweth) at the OMB and I worked together on the evaluation of some programs at the NSF. One program was eliminated and another actually had its budget increased (computer research headed by John Pasta). At the end of my career at the OST, OMB offered me the position of budget examiner of the NSF – but I declined – I had had enough of Washington.

Once a program or department or agency is created in Washington, it is never eliminated – even though the problem or mission for which it was created might have been solved and gone away. Today the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) within the Department of Commerce exists as a pork barrel for libraries and rural areas even though there really no longer is much need for subsideis or the NTIA, in my opinion. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) still funds efforts to send people into space, even though robots and machines do much better and without any risk to human life.

In early 1973, President Nixon eliminated the OST, perhaps in retaliation to some members of its advisory committees who were critical of his policies. The science and technology community complained strongly, perhaps because it had come to believe that the OST somehow represented their interests – it was their lobbying group within the EOP, as opposed to being personal advisors within the EOP to the President. Ultimately to appease the S&T community, some sort of “new” OST was created within the NSF.

When I went to Washington, I had expected to encounter lazy, incompetent, inept government workers. However, nearly every government employee I encountered was hard working, professional, and competent, law abiding, and dedicated to serving the people. Some worked long after normal hours. This left me with a good and secure feeling. Our government’s people were mostly winners.