Trump budget calls for seismic disruption in medical and science research

["Dave Farber" <dave () farber net>]

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
Date: Thu, Mar 16, 2017 at 8:38 AM
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Trump's budget calls for seismic disruption in
medical and science research
To: Multiple recipients of Dewayne-Net <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>


Trump’s budget calls for seismic disruption in medical and science research
By Joel Achenbach
Mar 16 2017
<
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/trumps-budget-would-slash-scientific-and-medical-research/2017/03/15/d3261f98-0998-11e7-a15f-a58d4a988474_story.html
>

President Trump’s budget calls for a seismic disruption in
government-funded medical and scientific research. The cuts are deep and
broad.

They also go beyond what many political observers expected. Trump had made
clearthat he would target the Environmental Protection Agency, but the
budget blueprint calls for a startling downsizing of agencies that
historically have received steady bipartisan support. The National
Institutes of Health, for example, would be cut by nearly $6 billion, about
a fifth of the NIH budget.

The shock waves of this blueprint will be felt far beyond the walls of
government bureaucracies. The scientific endeavor across America depends to
a large degree on competitive grants distributed by federal agencies that
face dramatic budget cuts. NIH uses only about 10 percent of its $30
billion budget for in-house studies; more than 80 percent goes to some
300,000 outside researchers.

Investment in research and development has been seen since World War II as
critical to national prosperity and security. But the Trump administration
has signaled that government-funded science, like government more broadly,
has become too sprawling.

The result is a budget that takes a sharp bite out of some programs and
kills others outright. Those targeted for termination include an EPA
program to clean up the Cheseapeake Bay, the accident-investigating
Chemical Safety Board, and a NASA satellite program (long ago known as the
GoreSat, after the idea was promoted by then-Vice President Al Gore) that
monitors solar storms and Earth’s climate.

The new document — titled “America First: A Budget Blueprint to Make
America Great Again” — seems likely to energize scientists and students who
have been rattled by Trump’s rhetoric and political appointments and are
preparing to participate in the “March for Science” demonstration scheduled
for April 22 in Washington.

The blueprint lacks the usual details of a presidential budget request —
those will come later, the administration says — and is only the opening
move in the complex negotiations with Congress over the federal purse.
Lawmakers from both parties will probably try to protect federal dollars
flowing into their districts.

The blueprint does not mention the National Science Foundation, which
provides more than $7 billion annually in grants. That may fall under the
category of “other agencies,” which are not detailed but which the
blueprint puts down for a 9.8 percent cut.

The document going to Capitol Hill shows the administration’s philosophy
and breaks with a history of bipartisan support for federally funded
science. NIH, for example, enjoyed an increase in funding under President
George W. Bush. The Trump budget blueprint does not explain why NIH has
been targeted for such a huge reduction, but calls for a “major
reorganization” to focus on “highest priority research.”

The Energy Department also faces a shake-up. It is one of the nation’s
largest employers of scientists and engineers. Thousands of people work in
each of the national laboratories, such as the one in Los Alamos, N.M.,
where the atomic bomb was invented more than seven decades ago. The
administration wants to boost the funding for maintenance of the nuclear
weapons stockpile, but outside of that one program, Energy would see a 17.9
percent budget cut.

[snip]

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