Crisis In Science Funding

The New York Times reports on how the failure to pass a federal budget has decimated ongoing and new science projects in the US:

Congressional Budget Delay Stymies Scientific Research

[NOTE: ...and threatens a lot of people's livelihoods. Thanks a lot!]

The failure of Congress to pass new budgets for the current fiscal year has produced a crisis in science financing that threatens to close major facilities, delay new projects and leave thousands of government scientists out of work, federal and private officials say.

“The consequences for American science will be disastrous,” said Michael S. Lubell, a senior official of the American Physical Society, the world’s largest group of physicists. “The message to young scientists and industry leaders, alike, will be, ‘Look outside the U.S. if you want to succeed.’ ”

. . .

Congress and the Bush administration could restore much of the science financing in the 2008 budget. Scientists say it would help enormously, but add that senior staff members by that point may have already abandoned major projects for other jobs that were more stable.

. . .

The National Science Foundation, which supports basic research at universities, had expected a $400 million increase over the $5.7 billion budget it received in 2006. Now, the freeze is prompting program cuts, delays and slowdowns.

Let's divert some of the Pentagon's budget back to NSF, NIH, etc. The Pentagon is the worst-managed federal agency, according to this report:

Fiscal mess awaits new defense chief
Gates inherits 'worst-managed' federal agency

Eric Rosenberg, Hearst Newspapers
Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Iraq isn't the only pressing issue Robert Gates will face when he becomes the 22nd U.S. defense secretary on Monday.

High on his list of priorities will likely be the enormous task of cleaning up the Pentagon's tangled finances, which outside auditors lambaste as so chaotic that no one knows how much money is being spent on defense at any given time.

Great! Just think of how many students and post-docs could be funded from the waste and fraud at the Pentagon... The article contines:

Nowhere is the Pentagon's inability to control costs more glaring than in the surging costs of new weapons projects. The Government Accountability Office, an arm of Congress and headed by Walker, recently concluded that the total cost of all major U.S. military weapons projects under development has doubled in five years to $1.4 trillion.

Financial problems like the Pentagon's "would put any civilian company out of business," said Kwai Chan, a former GAO auditor, assistant inspector general at the Environmental Protection Agency and author of a report entitled "Financial Management in the Department of Defense: No One is Accountable."

The Office of Management and Budget, the GAO and the Pentagon accountants "all cannot tell you and agree on how much the Pentagon is spending at any given time," said Chan.

So no one is accountable. How did that happen?