AAU and APLU sent a letter to Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin, Office of Management and Budget Acting Director Russel Vought, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Leaders Kevin McCarthy, Mitch McConnell, and Chuck Schumer urging them to work together to negotiate a bipartisan budget agreement that raises the discretionary spending caps for FY2020 and FY2021.
The associations stated, "As the new Task Force on American Innovation report Benchmarks 2019: Second Place America? Increasing Challenges to US Scientific Leadership clearly indicates, our nation’s competitive edge is now at stake as China and other countries rapidly increase their research and workforce development investments. Other countries are racing forward while our nation risks falling behind, mired in dysfunctional budget cycles that harm our nation’s innovation ecosystem."