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More on John Kerry and Science Budgets

Some thoughts on John Kerry’s plan for science and technology as related to budgets for science:

Kerry’s statement: “John Kerry has a plan to cut the deficit in half while paying for all his priorities. Kerry’s plan does this by paying for all his proposals, keeping discretionary spending other than education and security growing less than inflation, and cutting corporate welfare.”

Kerry statement: “Expand the spectrum available for new broadband wireless services and “first responders” – while raising $30 billion to fund science and technology innovation.”

These two statements suggest that John Kerry is planning to increase science and technology budgets by $30 billion over 4 years via a one-time infusion of funds. The current budget proposal for federal R&D funding for FY 2005 is $130 billion. Presumably the $30 billion that Kerry proposes would not lead to an permanent increase (if Kerry holds to his commitment on discretionary spending), which means that once the $30 billion is allocated and spent, then the continuing Kerry budget for R&D will look a lot like the plans of the current Administration (see AAAS on the Bush Administrations plans through 2009).

Kerry statement: “John Kerry will boost support for the physical sciences and engineering by increasing research investments in agencies such as the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Department of Energy, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).”

Kerry statement: “Under the Kerry plan, investment in long-term, high-risk defense research through agencies such as DARPA and the Office of Naval Research would be increased.”

Kerry statement: “Because it is not possible to predict where the next key breakthrough will come from, the Kerry plan will increase support for research that is driven solely by the quest for fundamental understanding about the world around us.”

A billion dollars is not what it used to be, and neither is $30 billion. If the broadband windfall of $30 billion is divided among just the seven agencies mentioned above, over a Kerry first term that would represent about a billion dollars per year in funding per agency. If the funds are allocated in proportion to share of the R&D budget, NIH and DOD would get considerably larger amounts, NSF, DOE and NIST much less. If other agencies are to be involved (e.g., NOAA, EPA, DOT, DHS, etc. etc.) the pie will be sliced into smaller pieces, perhaps much smaller.

To put the Kerry plan in perspective, he is in effect proposing a one-time increase in R&D funding of $7.5 billion or 5.7% over FY 2005 (i.e., ($30 billion/4 years)/$130 billion FY 2005), to be held constant for (I assume) 4 years, after which funding would necessarily be reduced to a level less than the inflationary growth over the four years. By contrast over the period 2001-2005, R&D funding increased by an average $10 billion per year (after accounting for inflation), or by $40 billion total (representing a 45% increase). (Note- These numbers are mind-boggling to me. Despite complaints of poverty, science today is in a golden age.) In this context, the funding increases proposed by Kerry are not relatively large or sustainable, and a one-time investment will not allow for the creation of long-terms programs.

Science policy necessarily must be about more than the overall budget for science, but in order to place the trees in perspective, we do need a view of the forest. I wonder if and when the AAAS or other science groups will take a close look at the Kerry science proposals.

Kerry statement: “Unfortunately, government support for many key disciplines of science and engineering, particularly the physical sciences and engineering, has been declining.”

This statement is simply factually incorrect. It is a mistake (for details see this earlier post.) It is appropriate to say that the Bush Administration’s current plans will inevitably lead to a decrease in science funding (but so to would the Kerry plan). But it is simply wrong to assert that science and engineering funding has been declining, and arguably Kerry’s mistaken allegation represents a misuse of science.

The Bush Administration has been taken to task (and rightly so) for its misuse of science in a number of contexts, and particularly for its convenient arraying of “facts” (which are not facts) to support its ideological agenda. Political preferences aside, doesn’t good science policy depend upon holding John Kerry to the same high standard?