{"id":1370,"date":"2009-10-15T11:26:05","date_gmt":"2009-10-15T15:26:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=1370"},"modified":"2009-10-15T11:40:06","modified_gmt":"2009-10-15T15:40:06","slug":"nobel-laureate-got-big-federal-bucks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/1370\/nobel-laureate-got-big-federal-bucks\/","title":{"rendered":"Nobel Laureate Got Big Federal Bucks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Last week, two Americans were awarded the <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/business\/la-fi-nobel13-2009oct13,0,4020535.story\" target=\"_blank\">Nobel Prize for Economics<\/a><\/span>.\u00a0 Thanks to our friend <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/krugman.blogs.nytimes.com\/2009\/10\/12\/an-institutional-economics-prize\/\" target=\"_blank\">Paul Krugman<\/a><\/span>, it was recently revealed that one of the winners, Elinor Ostrom, received a massive amount of federal funds during her career, in addition to her <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.indystar.com\/data\/government\/state_salaries2008_results.shtml\" target=\"_blank\">$167,018 salary<\/a><\/span> at Indiana University.<\/p>\n<p>The National Science Foundation (NSF), an organization tasked with promoting the <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nsf.gov\/about\/\" target=\"_blank\">progress of science<\/a><\/span>, has <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nsf.gov\/awardsearch\/piSearch.do?SearchType=piSearch&amp;page=1&amp;QueryText=&amp;PIFirstName=elinor&amp;PILastName=ostrom&amp;PIInstitution=&amp;PIState=&amp;PIZip=&amp;PICountry=&amp;Search=Search#results\" target=\"_blank\">given over $16.7<\/a> <\/span>million in inflation-adjusted grants to Professor Ostrom.\u00a0 This figure includes a hefty $9.8 million (inflation-adjusted) grant in 1971, when Professor Ostrom was just six years removed from her Ph.D.<\/p>\n<p>Obviously, given her recognition and achievements in the fields of political science and economics, she put this $16.7 million to good use, but with that much money one could only imagine what else could have been achieved.<\/p>\n<p>With <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.opensecrets.org\/orgs\/list.php?order=A\" target=\"_blank\">lobbying heavyweights<\/a><\/span> like the <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nea.org\/home\/16673.htm\" target=\"_blank\">National Education Association<\/a><\/span> and the <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.aft.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">American Federation of Teachers<\/a><\/span>, there are plenty of voices lobbying for more education funding.\u00a0 Everyone is trying to get a piece of the $3.6 trillion federal pie, and these groups are effective at ensuring more federal dollars go toward education funding.<\/p>\n<p>Senator Tom Coburn has seized on NSF funding and <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=j_UzwT968kI\" target=\"_blank\">has recommended<\/a><\/span> the elimination of political science grants.\u00a0 With over <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nacubo.org\/documents\/research\/NES2008PublicTable-AllInstitutionsByFY08MarketValue.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">$147.7 billion<\/a><\/span> in endowment wealth for the top ten Universities alone, there is plenty of higher education money available.\u00a0 If Harvard dedicated just 1% of its endowment to research funding, it could provide life-time grants to 22\u00a0 &#8220;Elinor Ostrom&#8217;s&#8221; every year (over $365 million in total).<\/p>\n<p>Senator Coburn often likes to make the point that you don&#8217;t practice charity through the federal government.\u00a0 You practice politics and favoritism.\u00a0 With so much private wealth already accumulated in the nation&#8217;s universities and other foundations dedicated to promoting education, has the market really failed to invest in education?\u00a0 If universities are as esteemed as they are in this country, couldn&#8217;t they afford a small investment in research grants?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last week, two Americans were awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics.\u00a0 Thanks to our friend Paul Krugman, it was recently revealed that one of the winners, Elinor Ostrom, received a massive amount of federal funds during her career, in addition to her $167,018 salary at Indiana University. The National Science Foundation (NSF), an organization tasked [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[298,297,296,265,206,15],"class_list":["post-1370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-american-federation-of-teachers","tag-national-education-association","tag-national-science-foundation","tag-nobel-prize","tag-paul-krugman","tag-tom-coburn"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1370"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1370\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1376,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1370\/revisions\/1376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}