Fascist bias in American R+D budget

["Gorojovsky" <Gorojovsky@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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February 12, 2002

Big Gains in Research Are Aimed at Military

By WARREN E. LEARY

 WASHINGTON, Feb. 11 ? At first glance, President Bush's 
proposed budget for the 2003 fiscal year includes a healthy 
increase for scientific research and development: $8.6 
billion, or 8.3 percent, to a record $111.8 billion.

But a closer look shows that the scientific budgets for most 
agencies will remain level or even decline under the 
president's plan.

The big winners, it turns out, are in just two agencies, 
each with a heavy emphasis on security in the wake of the 
Sept. 11 attacks. One, the Defense Department research 
budget, would receive $5.4 billion more than in 2002, a 10.9 
percent increase, and the other, the National Institutes of 
Health, would receive $3.7 billion, or 15.7 percent, more.

Of the overall $8.6 billion increase, more than $3 billion 
would go to antiterrorism activity like vaccines and 
treatments for biological attack, and to homeland security, 
with the health institutes and the Pentagon receiving most 
of that money. Most of the Pentagon's added research budget 
is earmarked for weapons.

At a budget briefing last week, Dr. John H. Marburger III, 
director of the White House Office of Science and Technology 
Policy and Mr. Bush's science adviser, said science had done 
well at a time the country was engaged in a war against 
terrorism, financing homeland security and dealing with 
recession. "This is a good budget for science," he said.

Most of the leading departments and agencies that conduct 
research and development received increases for those 
activities, Dr. Marburger said, and the administration has 
proposed a balanced scientific program that meets the 
nation's needs.

"When we talk about balance, that doesn't mean that 
everything will go up," Dr. Marburger said. "We need to make 
the case for what areas of science deserve increases and 
give them to them."

Others were more critical. Representative Sherwood Boehlert, 
the New York Republican who is chairman of the House Science 
Committee, said he was pleased with the substantial increase 
in spending on health research and noted that nonmilitary 
research would grow 1 percent above inflation. But Mr. 
Boehlert added that research spending "would remain anemic 
under this budget" and that increases for scientific work 
related to homeland security focused too much on immediate 
results, as opposed to basic research not directed at a 
short-term outcome.

Mr. Bush called for increases in three multiagency science 
initiatives with economic effects, including a 17.3 percent 
increase, to $679 million, for research in nanotechnology, 
the science of manipulating matter on the molecular scale. 
The Networking and Information Technology project to advance 
computing and software would receive an increase of almost 3 
percent, to $1.9 billion, and financing for research on 
global climate change would climb 5 percent, to $1.8 
billion.

But some agencies found that increases in their research 
requests meant that other programs would have to be held in 
check.

For instance, the National Aeronautics and Space 
Administration would receive a 5.3 percent increase in its 
research budget, but just a 1.4 percent increase over all. 
The human space flight allotment, including money for the 
International Space Station and the shuttle program, would 
drop by 11 percent, or $700 million. NASA proposed $15 
million to start a New Frontiers program for less expensive 
planetary missions, but canceled its outer-planets program, 
including the first spacecraft planned to visit Pluto.

The National Science Foundation's budget would increase 5 
percent, to $5 billion. Its research budget would rise 3.6 
percent, to $3.7 billion. But more than half of the research 
increase comes from transferring science-related programs to 
the foundation from other agencies where science budgets 
were cut accordingly, including the National Sea Grant 
Program from the Commerce Department, water-science research 
from the Interior Department and environmental education 
from the Environmental Protection Agency.

The E.P.A.'s research budget would rise 6.2 percent, to $650 
million. But much of that increase would come from $77.5 
million designated to study homeland security.

The Energy Department's research budget would fall 8 
percent, to $8.5 billion, with military programs suffering 
the biggest cuts after big increases the previous year for 
counterterrorism. The agency's Office of Science, which pays 
for research in physics and basic energy sciences, would 
receive a modest increase to $3.3 billion, to cover 
inflation.

Other significant changes in research budgets include a 
decline of 9.3 percent for the Agriculture Department, to 
$2.1 billion, and a 1.3 percent decline for the Commerce 
Department, to $1.1 billion. Pentagon spending on basic and 
applied research would generally remain flat. The Defense 
Advanced Research Projects Agency would be an exception, 
with a proposed increase of 19.2 percent, to $2.7 billion.

The Interior Department's research budget would decline 4.8 
percent, to $628 million. The department's largest science 
agency, the United States Geological Survey, would see its 
research budget fall 7 percent, to $542 million.



 Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company 


Néstor Miguel Gorojovsky
gorojovsky@xxxxxxxxxxxx

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Compañeros del exercito de los Andes. 

...La guerra se la tenemos de hacer del modo que podamos: 
sino tenemos dinero, carne y un pedazo de tabaco no nos 
tiene de faltar: cuando se acaben los vestuarios, nos 
vestiremos con la bayetilla que nos trabajen nuestras mugeres, 
y sino andaremos en pelota como nuestros paisanos los indios: 
seamos libres, y lo demás no importa nada...

Jose de San Martín, 27 de julio de 1819.

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