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Obama Budget Asks For 1% Boost In Research
sciencehabit sends this excerpt from ScienceInsider:
"One of the big three research agencies appears to be lagging behind its doubling peers in the president's 2013 budget request released this morning. The $4.9 billion budget of the Department of Energy's Office of Science would rise by 2.4%, to $5 billion. In contrast, the National Science Foundation would receive a nearly 5% boost, to $7.37 billion, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology a hike of 13%, to $860 million. These three agencies were originally singled by President George W. Bush in 2006 for a 10-year budget doubling, a promise that President Barack Obama and Congress have repeatedly endorsed despite the current tough economic times. ... Obama is
asking for a 1% increase in overall federal spending on research, to $140 billion. Within that total, the White House seeks a similar 1% hike in the $30 billion devoted to basic research."
Well, for starters, he only asked to increase the budget for science in his last year in office. In previous years he had been cutting it. Also his party opposed him on the increases. Then there's the fact that he routinely cut funding for agencies that violated the Republican dogma, such as the EPA. Oh, and the fact that one of the key aspects of the Republican Party platform is the lie that all the scientists in the world are part of one big conspiracy to trick people into thinking the world is getting hotter. Not to mention the Republican Party's constant support for creationism. And their turning the world "intellectual" into a pejorative.
The Republicans are very much anti-intellectual. You can pretend otherwise if that helps you sleep at night, but you are fooling yourself.
A doubling over ten years does not mean double it now and keep it that way for a decade. It means "sometime in the future, when I'm not in office anymore, the next guy should double it". The fact is that compared to funding levels in 2000, their funding levels only received inflation adjustments through to the 2007 budget. Only in 2008 did they get a noticeable increase. This information is readily available on the organizations websites, such as here.
Now please, try to refute the parts about the Republicans supporting creationism or using "intellectual" as an insult. This should be a fun read.
That's a great example. Bush put a lot of money into AIDS prevention and research, which is a great thing. But the groups he funded were prohibited from advocating for contraceptive use, ignoring all the research that tells us family planning is crucial to women's health. Look at all the good Bush did with that money, and think of how much better that would be if it was spent the way science tells us is effective?
Like I said, they only care for science when it fits their social agenda.
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