As the 2024 calendar year was winding down, Congress rushed to avoid a lapse in funding authority, which would have led to a government shutdown. Despite many political complications, cooler heads prevailed and a continuing resolution was passed into law. The new CR allows the federal departments and agencies to continue to operate, at the previous year’s funding levels, until March 14th. Unfortunately, that is the only certainty that the situation created.

As we have mentioned before while tracking the Fiscal Year 2025 (FY25) budget process, the outcome of the November 2024 elections is dictating the final outcome for the budget process. Since Republicans now have unified control of the federal government, they will be able to decide on final funding levels for FY25 and likely beyond. They are telegraphing a budget reconciliation strategy which has the potential to pass into law sweeping changes in federal spending. Details are sparse at the moment but the prospects for significant, across-the-board cuts to non-defense funding are very likely.

We mention “non-defense funding” because almost all of the federal research agencies, such as NSF, DOE SC, NASA, NIH, and NIST, that support researchers in the computing fields are categorized as non-defense spending.

However, in order for these funding cuts to come to pass, Congressional Republicans, particularly in the closely divided House of Representatives, must remain united. If they stay together, they will be able to pass their agenda into law; if they continue to operate as they have for the last two years, they are much more likely to falter and rely on Democratic votes to handle must-pass legislation. Time will tell, but the vote for the Speakership of the House will be an early indicator of how Congress will operate for the next two years.

This outlook does not cover the administration of incoming President Trump. The potential challenges, complications, and opportunities of the next administration will be covered in a future Policy Blog post. Put simply, there are many areas of concern but there are also potential positives for the computing research community. Again, time will tell.

CRA is monitoring the budget situation very closely and we will report out any develops over the next several months. And we will continue to impress on elected officials and policymakers of both parties that federal support for fundamental computing research is essential for the well-being of the nation.