Professor Shanske Urges State-Level Bonds to Counter Trump's Cuts to Research

Professor Darien Shanske argues that  states and/or university systems issue taxable 100-year century bonds to support key research projects amid the Trump administration’s cuts to core projects.

“One structural reason for using debt financing is that it allows future cohorts to pay for long-lived assets that they will benefit from,” Shanske writes. “For example, borrowing to build a bridge to be paid back with tolls means that we can share the cost of the bridge with the future generations who will enjoy it.”

A similar logic applies to American research enterprise, Shanske states, noting that “future generations will be delighted that we did not give up on making breakthroughs in medicine or energy.”

Darien Shanske is a Martin Luther King Jr. Professor of Law at UC Davis. His academic interests include taxation, particularly state and local taxation, local government law, public finance, and political theory, particularly jurisprudence.