U.S. R&D on the budget chopping block

[mumon]

link

WASHINGTON — Government-funded research and development programs are likely to get the budget ax in the next federal budget cycle, observers predict.

Government agencies that fund R&D programs were busy sorting through a massive spending bill approved by Congress over the past weekend trying to determine spending levels for individual programs. Sources said agencies like the National Science Foundation are likely to see funding remain flat for the remainder of fiscal 2005, with any increase absorbed later in budget manuevers designed to fund the war in Iraq.

Meanwhile, agency officials are pulling together budget proposals for fiscal 2006 that are due to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in January. Government sources predicted that OMB will slash domestic spending programs in order to rein in a soaring federal budget deficit, and that R&D programs will be a prime target for budget cutters...

While the fiscal 2005 spending bill did contain funding for new programs like supercomputing and commercial space, observers complained that the budget process has become so unwieldy that lawmakers have little idea of what's in the omnibus budget bill they are voting on. A major problem is last-minute spending provisions called "earmarks" used to fund pet projects in members' district.

We're eating our seed corn, folks.

[RawMaterials]

1. Great so now we will have nothing

to pull us out of the great depression II when it hits.
Historically technology is what will lead you out of a recession/depression.

[Old and In the Way]

2. Sadly, you are correct.

Just another sign that Republicans are giving up on America. They've conceded the future to China/EU/India...nothing left to do but clean out the Treasury and move those $ into someone else's markets.

[seasat]

3. They've been cutting throughout the entire Bush Aministration.

The only areas where they actually increased research funding were medical research, climate change, IT, and nanotechnology. Oh, and of course weapons development. Everything else has been slashed. They did it through covert means. Early in the last Shrub Inc regime, a rule was passed that required increases in NSF budgets each year. They got around that by taking programs from other agencies, such as Sea Grant from NOAA, and putting them under NSF along with their budgets. Now that Shrub Inc. has reclaimed power, we can expect those few programs with minor increases to get cut, except for weapons development. R&D were the only things that kept us above other countries. We've lost the edge in manufacturing, agriculture, and skilled labor. Now Shrub Inc is destroying our last remaining advantage. It makes you just want to walk up to the average citizen, slap them aside the face, and scream "WAKE UP".

[w4rma]

4. Bye bye American pie. (nt)

[DireStrike]

6. ..."the levy was dry"

10 more years or so...

[Bozita]

5. That's the scariest thing I've read in over a week

Talk about mortgaging the future.

[dArKeR]

7. Remember that movie about the child, son of Satan,

who was taken in and raised by the US VP, Gregory Peck. That was the end of the movie to show how Satan would rise in America. It's time to stop associating Satan with the Bush/GOP Family in fun. It's time to start taking a serious look at this! These people are here to destroy America.

[TrogL]

8. OK, I'm dreaming, right?

I can't decide whether or not this is a nightmare.

I'll be upfront about this. I'm a Canadian citizen. I'm a federalist, a die-hard Liberal, fairly Kenysian economcially and a strong believer in government support for innovation. Certainly in my neck of the woods this is dogma. The government throws huge money at R & D, then privatizes the results if it works. It's called the Alberta Advantage locally, but the feds to the same thing under a different name.

The US government has to be absolutely, bugfuck insane to do this. All their innovation will flee the country either to Asia or my doorstep.

Why, oh why oh why do they insist upon turning the US in to a "service based economy". All you're doing is taking in your neighbour's laundry.

:wtf: is going on?

[leftchick]

10. they aren't insane...

they are some bizarre form of utopians. They are doing this intentionally, just as supreme evil adviser Grover Norquist has been salivating for years for. It is scarier than hell to be living here in the US, if you are paying attention that is.

Got an acre to spare TrogL?!?

:scared:

[Tempest]

9. This will send even more researchers overseas

Already Sweden has passed the U.S. as the number one destination for biological research.

All new breakthroughs will come from overseas and the U.S. will be in a poor bargaining position on licensing the breakthroughs.

How the mighty have fallen.

[lakeguy]

12. ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, Sweden

here I come!!!

[VegasWolf]

16. Didn't Briton dominate the world just a few hundred years ago.

Wasn't there an empire named Ram, err, no, Rome at one
time? No civilization at their peak thinks it can happen to
them. But it does.

[sonicx]

11. who needs science when ya got jesus?

:eyes:

[Bozita]

13. Many would say exactly that ... without rolling their eyes!

[Straight Shooter]

14. The Golden Goose is getting ready to sh*t a brick

The Pell grants have been reduced, too. The solution of the spokesperson for the American Council on Education? "Work more hours and take out more loans."

I swear on the Bible, "Beware the Cult of W."

[mulethree]

15. CCAGW Slams $388 Billion Omnibus Bill

http://councilfor.cagw.org/site/News2?abbr=CCAGW_&page=NewsArticle&id=8474



“Congress stuffed the bill with pork,” Schatz says



(Washington, D.C.) - The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) today criticized Congress for passing an omnibus spending package that funds nine of the 13 fiscal year 2005 appropriations bills. The $388 billion 2005 Omnibus Appropriations Act is temporarily being held up after members of Congress expressed outrage over the discovery of an obscure line in the 1,690-page bill that would give the chairmen of the Appropriations Committees and their staff assistants the authority to access the income tax returns of any American. Republican leaders promised to delete the provision in a special session on Wednesday. President Bush announced his intention to sign the final bill once the provision is removed.


“This bill confirms that the appropriations process is broken,” CCAGW President Tom Schatz said. “The complex spending package was made available to members of Congress only hours before the vote. The invasive IRS measure is typical of last-minute additions to spending bills. Taxpayers have little to be thankful for, as members of Congress have helped themselves to the whole hog on this Thanksgiving.”


While lawmakers and President Bush lauded the omnibus for holding domestic spending, excluding defense and foreign aid, members of Congress showed no restraint in their hunger for pork-barrel projects. The thousands of earmarks lurking in the bill include: $3.5 million for bus acquisition in Atlanta, Ga.; $2 million for kitchen relocation in Fairbanks North Star Borough in Fairbanks, Alaska; $1.5 million for a demonstration project to transport naturally chilled water from Lake Ontario to Lake Onondaga; $500,000 for the Kincaid Park Soccer and Nordic Ski Center in Anchorage, Alaska; $250,000 for the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, Tenn.; $200,000 for Fenton Street Village pedestrian linkages in Montgomery Co., Md.; $100,000 for a municipal swimming pool in Ottawa, Kan.; $80,000 for the San Diego Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Community Center; $75,000 for the Paper Industry International Hall of Fame in Appleton, Wis.; $35,000 for the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame; and $25,000 for fitness equipment for the YMCA in Bradford County, Pa.

[damntexdem]

17. Oh, that's no problem:

the U.S. will simply outsource R&D, economic development, and so on.