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- Path: sparky!uunet!gatech!mailer.cc.fsu.edu!sun13!ds8.scri.fsu.edu!jac
- From: jac@ds8.scri.fsu.edu (Jim Carr)
- Newsgroups: sci.physics
- Subject: Re: Space Station & APS
- Message-ID: <10052@sun13.scri.fsu.edu>
- Date: 31 Jul 92 17:51:30 GMT
- References: <1992Jul30.214339.38024@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu>
- Sender: news@sun13.scri.fsu.edu
- Reply-To: jac@ds8.scri.fsu.edu (Jim Carr)
- Organization: SCRI, Florida State University
- Lines: 49
-
- In article <1992Jul30.214339.38024@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu> jmp1@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu (JEFFREY MICHAEL PARSONS) writes:
- >Can anyone confirm what Sen. Grahm (Texas) said on CBS This Morning (7/30/92)?
- >I believe that he said that governmental funding of science research has gone
- >from a former (stable) 5% of the budget to 1.8% (1.6% without the SSC) under
- >the current Congress. He noted that this trend appears to be continuing. I
-
- I cannot confirm these numbers, but some quick reverse engineering would
- serve as a check: 0.2% assigned to the SSC, which has a 0.5 G$ budget,
- implies the science budget is 4.5 G$ and the total budget is 250 G$ based
- on the percentages above. This last number is about right for the
- *discretionary* part of the budget; the total is more the 1000 G$.
- The 4.5 G$ is about right since the total science budget w/o the SSC is
- about 1 G$ in DOE, NSF is similar, and NIH spends about 1 G$ on AIDS and
- similar amount on cancer. Obviously NASA is not included in this number,
- although some science projects in NASA might be covered by that number.
-
- The reduction over the years reflects several things, but the most
- recent change is due to the squeeze put on "discretionary" spending
- by the entitlements, defense, and the deficit reduction plan, especially
- since there are some long-term commitments in HUD and other agencies that
- cannot be controlled because of contractual obligations.
-
- >would also add that it is my impression that a smaller percentage of federal
- >science funding is going to physics. Does anyone have a source which confirms
- >or refutes these facts? Dale, what does your crystal ball have to say? :-)
-
- Yes. The rate of increase in physics has been less than the increase given
- to the total science budget. NIH has grown in its percentage because of
- the massive AIDS research program that did not exist 5 years ago.
-
- That is not all of the story, however.
-
- Latest move in the Senate, to take 50 M$ from nuclear physics and put it
- in the military budget along with the LAMPF experimental facility it
- paid for, would be a 14% permanent cut in nuclear research if it stands.
- This is a move by Sen. Domenici (R,NM) to punish nuclear physics for the
- decision by the Nuclear Science Advisory Committee to gradually shut down
- LAMPF after 20 years, since it could not be sustained in the face of
- declining budgets in real dollars and the operational needs of new
- facilities now under construction. I personally regret the move to
- shut down LAMPF, but the move by Domenici both violates the "firewall"
- between defense and discretionary and ignores a long-standing agreement
- on how major allocation decisions would be made in physics.
-
- --
- J. A. Carr | "The New Frontier of which I
- jac@gw.scri.fsu.edu | speak is not a set of promises
- Florida State University B-186 | -- it is a set of challenges."
- Supercomputer Computations Research Institute | John F. Kennedy (15 July 60)
-