A single interest group can strip federal funding for policy research

Evidence

The conflict over firearms spilled over to funding research designed to inform public policy (Luo, 2011). The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention funded research on gun-related injuries and deaths as a public health issue. Ken Cox, the chief lobbyist for the NRA, pressed for the elimination of the injury center on the grounds that “they were promoting the idea that gun ownership was a disease that needed to be eradicated.” Efforts by progun legislators to eliminate the center failed, but they stripped the budget for it. The congressman who spearheaded the budgetary amendment reflected on the reason for the prohibition: “We have the right to bear arms because of the threat of government taking over the freedoms that we have.” Funding for firearms research has been cut not only at the CDC, but at the Justice Department as well. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1188

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s interest in how institutions and interest groups distort evidence-based policy — parallels Milgrom on how institutions shape markets, but here political lobbying corrupts research funding.
• SEED: The weaponization of research-funding cuts as a policy tool — essay angle on how science gets defunded not by argument but by institutional levers (the Dickey Amendment and its long chill on gun-violence research).