As Congress moves toward voting on next year's federal budget, President David Skorton asserted that supporting the humanities is "a wise investment in the future of the United States."

Skorton delivered the keynote address, "Humanities: In the National Interest," at the annual membership meeting of the National Humanities Alliance March 7, Humanities Advocacy Day, in Washington, D.C.

"There has never been a time when the humanities have been more important to our national life," Skorton said. "Not since the mid-1990s have they faced such drastic reductions in federal funding. … The fiscal realities facing our nation -- and the new mood in Congress, especially in the House -- have put a vast array of federal programs in jeopardy, but the humanities more dramatically than most."

Even as "a very small part of the federal budget," he said, "the humanities have been a tempting target" for those seeking to reduce the budget or "advance specific social or political agendas."

Cutting funding for -- or eliminating -- the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) would have "real and far-reaching consequences not only to our understanding of our history, culture and civic values but also for our economic competitiveness and national security," Skorton maintained.

"Work in the humanities cuts a wide swath, and the NEH, despite its limited budget, has been important to all of us," he said. The agency funds research in "every state and territory, reaching rural and underserved areas -- especially hard-hit by the recession."

NEH also funds local museums, libraries and state organizations supporting "local, community-based programming," he said. "More than 2.5 million Americans are engaged in a broad range of humanities professions," he said, including teachers, college and university professors, museum curators, librarians and translators.

The Obama administration's budget proposes reducing NEH funding by $21.5 million to $146 million, "with comparable reductions for the National Endowment for the Arts," Skorton said. He recommended aiming "for level funding of NEH at the 2010 level of $167.5 million … a realistic approach."

"We need to make it clear to our elected leaders that no matter what priorities they and their constituents have for the future of our country, the elimination -- or even further deterioration -- of the NEH will adversely impact those priorities," Skorton said.

He continued: "Two ingredients critical to innovation and competitiveness in the 21st century … are investments in education to fill the talent pipeline, as well as research and development to develop new products, processes and industries."

While he also supports investments in science and technology, "our most pressing and complex problems worldwide will not be solved by science alone," Skorton said. "Local cultures and values hugely impact the willingness of people to embrace scientific discoveries, from genetically modified foods to vaccines." Understanding those cultures and values, he said, "is the domain of the humanities and the social sciences."

Study in humanistic disciplines is "often promoted … as a way to teach basic skills of critical and contextual thinking, communication and ethics to scientists, engineers, business people and those in other applied professions," Skorton said. "As they provide a foundation for success in a wide range of careers, they serve as well as a prerequisite for responsible citizenship."

He quoted from the recent book "Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses," which states that students "majoring in traditional liberal-arts fields … demonstrated significantly higher gains in critical thinking, complex reasoning and writing skills over time than students in other fields of study."

"It is in the nation's interest and essential to our global competitiveness to have the up-and-coming generation, from all backgrounds, educated broadly, humanistically and well," Skorton said.