May 7, 2008

House Spending Bill Leaves Out Money for Physical Sciences

Washington — Advocates for scientists have lost their bid to persuade Congress to raise spending on physical-sciences research during the remainder of the 2008 fiscal year. The money is not contained in a war-spending bill that the U.S. House of Representatives is to consider on Thursday.

Universities had lobbied to increase money specifically for the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy’s Office of Science. Congress provided both agencies with minimal increases for 2008, far less than the amounts authorized by the America Competes Act, a law enacted last year to bolster technology development and the economy. As a result, layoffs are planned at Energy Department laboratories that serve academic researchers.

Thirty-one House members in both parties signed a letter in April endorsing a spending increase for the two agencies. But House leaders have been under pressure to squeeze increased spending into the bill for a variety of other civilian programs, including veterans’ benefits.

“We’re very disappointed” about the lack of research money, said Barry Toiv, a spokesman for the Association of American Universities. He said he hoped the proposal might yet gain traction in the Senate, where eight members signed a letter in March calling for the spending bill to include $350-million for the two agencies. —Jeffrey Brainard

Comments

1. The Democrats are still in charge of Congress — correct? Now that they’ve followed their noses or principles and have ended the war in Iraq, they’re so smug that they no longer even pretend to care about education, research, science. But, soldiers, they’d better be careful. Science-major Al Gore has yet to rule out a second try at winning his home state in a presidential contest. He’d make these Luddite laddies get-down and plus-up.

   — S. Britchky    May 7, 11:07 PM    #

2. We are still VERY much at war in Iraq, and the Republicans have been the worst stewards of government money in the history of the US.

   Hopefully these labs will be able to tap into some DOE and Homeland security funds to stay in business until the White House changes and we can bring the troops home.

   — Stephen    May 8, 09:00 AM    #

3. This is no surprise to anyone familiar with the liberal agenda. If we were considering increasing spending on the ever so popular (and worthless) “social engineering” type programs of study such as “How women are marginalized in today’s society,” or “The wounding of the African American,” you could bet the farm that House liberals would be fighting one another for the microphone to voice their support. Heaven help us!

   — Joseph Spretnjak    May 8, 10:46 AM    #

4. One has to wonder where some people have been for the past quarter century as 2 Bushes and a Reagan created 90% of the US debt and turned the country from the world’s greatest creditor nation to the biggest debtor nation. The only Democratic president in that period actually managed a brief budget surplus! One has to wonder how much longer China can keep our economy afloat by buying dollars; all bets are off after the Olympics.

   — Tom Craven    May 8, 02:02 PM    #

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