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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."
Thanks a lot, /. And just how do you propose that I cram this datum into the politically-convenient narrative of science-hating Republicans that the internet has been spoon-feeding for years?
And a 1% increase is actually a decrease. You have to talk in inflation-adjusted numbers for it to mean anything. That said, just maintaining the status quo is somewhat generous; we do need to back off govt. spending as the economy improves.
Better to cut defense spending and fix the tax laws than to cut research spending. The last thing this country needs is to fall further and further behind the rest of the world.
Research is food for the economy. We won't be able to balance the budget if there's no revenue, and there won't be revenue without businesses providing jobs, and there won't be jobs without innovative new technologies and products.
Your proposal for the economy is like balancing a household's budget by eliminating all spending on food. Sure, if you can do that over 10 years you'll go a long way towards balancing your budget, but more than likely by that point your household's members are either all dead or spending all their time subsistence begging while living under a bridge (with a household budget of $0).
And if research is food, education is water. Sorry this is a food analogy instead of a car analogy.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
Thanks a lot, President Lawnchair. Maybe some time in my lifetime we'll get an actual liberal in the white house (though I can't think of when that would be)?
I too would like to get a real liberal in the White House. Till that date comes, all I can do is to try my best keep the wacko Republicans from getting the Presidency, pack the courts, and hand over what little remains to the Mulitnational Corporations and the banksters. That means voting Obama.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
The National Institutes of Health would also see its budget remain flat, at $30.7 billion
Thanks a lot. And for those of you who think you don't care, it's worth pointing out that NIH is the first funding agency to require publications coming from its work to be put in open-access or publicly-accessible journals. The other agencies are still allowing their work to go into paywalled journals at the time. So even if you don't agree with their mission of health research, you might want to at least take notice that they are trying to ensure that the work the taxpayer pays for is in a place where the taxpayer doesn't have to pay again to see the results.
And being as NIH grant success rate is at an all-time low (same source), the odds of more great original research coming from their effectively-reduced budget is miniscule.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
How do you grant an X prize for basic science research? Basic science is the area where the government is absolutely needed because no company can afford to fund it as there is no payback in the horizon that a companies shareholders will find acceptable (excepting those with a government granted monopoly like Bell Labs). Most practical research should be left to the private sector because as you say the government is not particularly effective at picking the right horse.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
But cutting a far smaller research budget will? Where's the logic in that?
And who says that a balanced budget is the right thing to do? Economists will tell you that a balance budget when you are trying to grow the economy is a bad idea. People just think blanketly that you always have to balance your budget but it just doesn't work that way on the scale and scope of a government our size.
Now that's not to say that things aren't out of whack. You just need to prioritize things.
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.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
That's because AIDS work is the only positive accomplishment that Bush can point to. You can give him that one.
However, cynics looking into his AIDS accomplishments also point rightfully to the fact that his initiatives REQUIRED that AIDS drugs be bought through American sources. This wasn't exactly fleecing these foreign countries (as the prices were actually fair when compared to the prices of the same drugs in the states), but it was another windfall for his corporate buddies. It also prevented these countries from saying to hell with drug patents and setting up their own drug manufacturing (which would have produced the drugs at costs even more reasonable for their poor population).