A preliminary report on the administration’s proposed science funding. Who are the winners, and who are the losers? Are there any losers?
The administration has released a previous of its proposed budget. After years of stagnant funding for research, there are obviously many people interested to know whether Obama will live up to promises of investing in science.
There is no centralized science directive, so it is hard to evaluate the budget as a whole. However, what I can find looks promising. The NSF 2010 budget includes a $950 million (16%) increase over 2008. NASA is similarly getting a $1.5 billion dollar (9%) raise over 2008 levels. This is of course on top of large supplements to both programs through the Stimulus Package. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is unfortunately buried within a larger department, and there isn’t enough information to evaluate it. The Department of Energy appears to be getting increased research funding, but I wasn’t able to track down exact numbers.
Concerns about the deficit aside, after so many years of depressing, damaging budgets, it is hard not to be excited. Someone at the top seems to actually care.
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