Director of science agency foresees more budget cuts

[The Straight Story]

Director of science agency foresees more budget cuts

By William New, National Journal's Technology Daily
The National Science Foundation (NSF) got slapped with a 3 percent budget cut in fiscal 2005 and is expected to face tight times again in the president's fiscal 2006 budget request due out next month, leaving new foundation director Arden Bement searching for ways to make the most of his lot.

The final fiscal 2005 budget "indicates that we're in a very difficult budget climate and that the administration puts a very high priority on reducing the budget deficit, and that's going to affect our programs in the discretionary budget, including research," Bement said in a Monday interview at NSF's Arlington, Va., headquarters. "On top of that, we're going to have to take a realistic view of the budget climate in setting our goals for the near term."

"Of course, my hope is that we'll continue to grow," he added, "but not at the rate expected under the Investing in America's Future Act of 2002," which authorized a doubling of NSF appropriations from fiscal 2003 through fiscal 2005.

Bement said he is working to stress to budgeters "the importance of investing in the future and the strong linkage between science investment, economic development and job creation if we're going to maintain our own."

http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0105/011205tdpm1.htm

[MichiganVote]

1. You think? Who needs science? certainly not the fundies or the RCC

[Dudley_DUright]

2. Wonderful!

Let's see if we can divert all that NSF money into faith based science. (/sarcasm)

More payback for us scientists that opposed the shrub in 2004. Let's keep eating that seed corn and watch the rest of the industrialized world pass us by.