[Download] "Bush Budget would Cut Most R & D Programs (From THE HILL)" by Issues in Science and Technology # Book PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Bush Budget would Cut Most R & D Programs (From THE HILL)
- Author : Issues in Science and Technology
- Release Date : January 22, 2005
- Genre: Engineering,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 161 KB
Description
On February 7, President Bush released his proposed budget for FY 2006. Against a backdrop of record-breaking federal budget deficits, a continuing and costly war in Iraq, an expansion of Medicare to pay for prescription drugs, and expensive proposals to introduce private accounts for Social Security in the future, the federal investment in R & D would barely grow in FY 2006, with cuts in R & D programs outnumbering increases. In order to restrain the budget deficit, the president proposes to hold nondefense discretionary spending flat for the third year in a row. Indeed, after factoring in increases for international aid and homeland security, domestic nonsecurity spending overall would fall in FY 2006 by 1 percent. Defense spending would increase modestly compared to previous years, but the true picture is uncertain because the budget excludes funding for the Iraq war. Federal R & D investment mirrors these overall trends, with flat funding for defense R & D and increases for homeland security and space exploration R & D offset by cuts in most other R & D programs. The past few years have seen record-breaking totals for federal R & D because of enormous increases for defense weapons development, the creation of new homeland security R & D programs, and the now-completed campaign to double the National Institutes of Health (NIH) budget. The federal R & D investment hit an all-time high this year because of defense and homeland security increases, but in completing FY 2005 appropriations last December, Congress went along with the president's proposals to freeze most domestic discretionary spending at FY 2004 levels. As a result, the nondefense, non-homeland security R & D portfolio stagnates this year, with modest increases in some areas offset by cuts in others. The FY 2006 budget for next year would continue this austerity and extend it to defense R & D. As a result, growth in the federal R & D portfolio would fail to keep pace with inflation for the first time in a decade, and most R & D programs would suffer cuts in real terms.