Thanks to Spaf and Dave Farber’s Interesting-People list for the pointer to this column by The New Republic’s Jonathan Chait taking Congress to task for approving a cut to the National Science Foundation while at the same time allowing more dubious pork-barrel spending to flourish. It’s more than a little partisan, but still interesting. Here’s […]
The Wall Street Journal online edition has an interesting article on the federal budget deficit and the President’s plan for overcoming it. Included is some info about the impact of appropriation cuts on the National Science Foundation and a good primer on the challenge facing the President and Congress in looking for other places to […]
As the FY 05 appropriations process demonstrated, the current organization of congressional appropriations subcommittees (and thus, appropriations bills) is a mess that puts science agencies at a disadvantage in the competition for federal dollars. The current structure is a mish-mash of jurisdictions that forces agencies that have little or nothing to do with each other […]
The first “passbacks” from the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) have apparently begun to leak and rumors are circulating that NIST is once again in for lean times. (Passbacks are OMB’s response to each agency’s budget request for the coming fiscal year — they are OMB’s verdict on what will and won’t […]
The Washington Post has an interesting article about House Majority Leader Tom Delay’s (R-TX) successful efforts to singlehandedly secure a large increase for the President’s Moon/Mars Space Initiative in the FY 2005 Omnibus Appropriations bill. In a bill that included some significant cuts to science, most notably a cut of $105 million to the National […]
Thomas Friedman’s editorial in the New York Times today hits Congress hard for approving a cut to the National Science Foundation in the Omnibus Appropriations bill. A sample: Of all the irresponsible aspects of the 2005 budget bill that the Republican-led Congress just passed, nothing could be more irresponsible than the fact that funding for […]
Kudos to the New York Times for noting the disconnect between Congress earmarking funds for questionable projects and, at the same time, cutting funding for the agency responsible for fueling much of the innovation that has driven our economy and improved our health and welfare. From the article: While cutting the budget of the [National] […]
Here’s some of the agency-by-agency wrap-up in the wake of the FY 2005 Omnibus Bill. We’ve detailed some of the blow-by-blow in the lead-up to final passage here. All figures include the 0.80 percent across-the-board cut imposed on all non-defense agencies to pay for additional spending in other parts of the bill. NSF: NSF will […]
(Scroll down for the latest updates) Conflicting rumors abound regarding the outlook for NSF in the FY 05 appropriations process. As House and Senate negotiators attempt to put the finishing touches on an omnibus appropriations bill by Friday or Saturday, word comes that NSF will likely not fare well in the bill. GovExec.com reports that […]
The House today re-passed HR 4516, the High End Computing Revitalization Act of 2004, which would authorize the creation of a “leadership class” supercomputer at DOE and a “High-end Software Development Center.” The House action means that the bill will now head to the President, who is expected to sign it. We’ve covered the bill […]
