Morton Kondracke
http://www.jewishworldreview.com --
PRESIDENT BUSH is keeping his promise to help double the federal
government's medical research budget, but he's facing criticism
for low-balling other research vital to U.S. productivity.
Democrats, scientists, corporate groups -and former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) - have protested net cuts after inflation in the budgets of the National Science Foundation, NASA and energy research.
Testifying before the House Armed Services Committee last month, Gingrich said it is important for our national security that Congress increase Bush's science budget request.
Gingrich represented a blue-ribbon commission on national security headed by former Sens. Warren Rudman (R-N.H.) and Gary Hart (D-Colo.), which concluded that, next to terrorist attacks within our borders, flagging science investment and science education are the greatest foreseeable threats to the United States.
In an interview earlier, Gingrich told me that the budget for the NSF, which supports non-medical university research and trains scientists, "should be $11 billion," not the $4.5 billion that Bush requested. The President's mere $56 million boost for NSF was "a tragic mistake," he said.
Bush's budget calls for a 13 percent increase for the National Institutes of Health, but only a 2.5 percent increase for other civilian science, space and technology programs - a cut after inflation is taken into account.
The Defense Science Board also has protested that defense research other than missile defense is not receiving adequate funding.
Gingrich and other critics argued that failure to support basic scientific research will stifle innovation and productivity that fuel economic growth.
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Specific areas needing funds, they said, include development of "post-silicon" computer chips, climate change and alternative energy sources, such as fusion, earthquake detection and advanced imaging.
Bush met with a group of high-tech executives last week and extolled their past performance. "This administration has great confidence in the future of the high-technology industry," he said, despite recent drops in technology stocks.
"You've changed the way we work and communicate, and you've changed the way we learn," he said. "You've done for American economic leadership in the 21st century what heavy industry did in the 20th century."
"You've done so much for your country, it's time for your country to do something for you," he added. In other words, cut their income taxes and extend the tax credit for corporate research-and-development expenses.
However, Bush's critics, particularly Democrats, say his tax cuts are actually crowding out investments in research and endangering the long-term growth of the economy.
Democrats on the House Budget Committee proposed scientific spending 50 percent higher than what House Republicans approved, following Bush's request.
In an interview, Bush budget director Mitch Daniels said, "We did what we felt we could afford" in science funding.
Daniels added that "we'll listen" if Congress wants to find more money for science by cutting other programs to stay within spending limits.
He acknowledged that the proposed increase for NSF is "very small," but said the agency had received 7 percent more funds last year. Moreover, he noted that some energy research amounts to subsidies for corporations, which should be investing more themselves.
The Bush budget contains a $2.8 billion increase for the National Institutes of Health. Daniels said Bush plans a $4.1 billion increase next year to complete the task of doubling NIH's budget over five years.
After that, he said, it may be "appropriate" to shift funds to other scientific research. But critics, including the former head of NIH, Nobel Prize winner Harold Varmus, argue that medical research is being held back by underfunding in other areas, such as imaging and computing.
For instance, Gingrich said it's theoretically possible for surgeons to use images and computers to perform "virtual surgery" on patients as practice for actual operations, thereby limiting mistakes.
The critics' strongest case, however, is economic. A group of industry executives and scientific organizations headed by the National Association of Manufacturers wrote Bush in February that "If we cut federal investment in science today, it will be at the cost of lower productivity increases tomorrow."
Groups protesting Bush's budget often quote Alan Bromley, his father's White House science adviser, who declared in a New York Times op-ed piece in early March that "The proposed cuts in scientific research are a self-defeating policy" for an administration that wants to encourage growth and budget surpluses.
"No science, no surplus. It's that simple," Bromley
JWR contributor Morton Kondracke is executive editor of Roll Call, the newspaper of Capitol Hill. Send your comments by clicking here.
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