700,000,000,000
6,850,000,000
The lower number is the requested NSF budget for 2009, which represents an inconceivably bold 14% increase over 2008, in an attempt to get the budget back on the widely agreed upon track called for by the American Competitiveness Initiative.
The actual 2009 budget will likely be a continuing resolution, with same dollar amount as 2008 and no increase for science. Which is of course a net cut after inflation.
The $800 million increase would pay for about 16,000 new graduate student years, or say 2-3,000 new PhDs in the sciences. In practise maybe only half that after equipment, consumables, travel, and faculty salaries.
But at least 1,000 new science PhDs, working on blue sky research setting the basis for the economy in the next decades.
Unless Obama makes it an internal priority, with associated Congresscritter arm twisting, the NSF, and other science agencies, will probably not get any such increases in the foreseeable future - oh, they'll be proposed, maybe even make it into a draft bill, but then they will be horse traded away for an increase in corn subsidies, or new uniforms for the TSA, or something.
The other number is the "TARP" budget.
Half of which has been spent. In the last two months.
It was approved with essentially no debate or analysis, has no Congressional supervision on the spending and is being doled out on the say so of a single person.
And is one of several comparable sized programs pumping money into the financial and insurance conglomerations.
Several individual institutions, any one of which is redundant in its function, have received funding larger than the NASA and NSF 2009 budgets combined. Each.
Most then planned to give just about that exact amount out as bonuses and retention pay for senior management. To the same people who ran these institutions into de facto bankruptcy.
Hey, at least no bank has received as much funding as the NIH budget, yet.
Except maybe JP Morgan for the Bear Sterns thing, which is of course separate from their direct cash injection.
But then an insurance company was given more money than the personnel costs for the US Department of Defence.
Got to defend annuities.
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That puts things into a rather scary perspective...
Because if these senior management types don't get their bonuses, then The Terrorists Have Won(TM).
Now we know why they're called capitalist pigs.
... but with such a bad economy, where would 1000 newly minted PhDs work? This is something that I am worrying about with the impending end of my PhD slowly (very slowly) comes into view.
Regarding the continuing resolution, that is set to expire in March of 2009.
The idea was not to bother trying to pass a budget with the current administration.
I am amazed how the TARP money has been spent on just about everything but what the original justification was for.
Of course, if the US Treasury let, say, Citibank fail, American depositors would be fine (there is pleny of money to cover the FDIC obligations for insured US deposits). It just be a bunch of furriners who would lose money. I am surprised no Congresscritters have brought that up.
The informal guidance I have heard, third hand, is to expect the bulk of the agencies to be left on the continuing resolution through fiscal '09.
ie there will likely be a targeted stimulus package in early '09, but then they'll focus on getting the '10 budget into shape.
So, if the science agencies are not covered under a stimulus umbrella, which they very likely may not be, then they are stuck with no increase till fiscal '10.
This would, incidentally, wipe out a large fraction of new awards in '09, and probably require recission of existing grants.
We can hope not.
The informal guidance I have heard, third hand, is to expect the bulk of the agencies to be left on the continuing resolution through fiscal '09.
Obviously, I had not heard that. I hope that this is not true but, of course, we have to balance the budget now, apparently....
Well, right now there are a lot of postdoc positions, so people who can get in this year are probably mostly safe for 2-3 years.
If the crunch lasts more than 2 years, than we have a depression, could take a while to clear, but after plumber and such, being a physical scientist is a good bet for a depression (though there may not be the usual escape path into quantitative finance for a while).
There are faculty positions right now.
Don't expect many next year, or the year after.
When the crunch clears, there will be rehirings, of those who rode out the hard time.
Of course science is sensitive to small variations in government policy - a economy boosting package that included higher ed and blue sky research for long term economic growth would drive a boom in science. Cost cutting and budget balancing with all the money going to short term patches would crush science.
Well, good news is that the Senate version of the omnibus bill includes almost full requested funding for NSF - 13% increase.
Bad news are: NASA gets a cut; House bill does not have figure for increases; and, the whole thing has to go through conference before it is sent to Obama in Jan.
...before it is sent to Obama in Jan.
Technically, either it goes to Bush by early January, or they start over. This is because Congress will adjourn at some point (they must, because a new Congress will take over) which is more than ten days before the inauguration. Bush could choose to sign it, but if he doesn't it constitutes a "pocket veto" and they start over anyway.
They might start from the current bills as a negotiating point, but procedurally they would have to start from square one.
They're doing something funky - like lining up all the bills and mostly pre-agreeing on the details so they can be fasttracked to Obama in very few days after the inauguration;
unless the Republicans hold them up in the Senate, which would likely be political suicide.
But they still need a House/Senate reconciliation committee, and that is where science often dies - like last year, both sides agreed separately to an increase and then quietly cut it out in conference to fits some other priority in.
A big boost in late Jan/early Feb over continuation would be early enough to change outcomes for NSF and certainly for ROSES-09, though it looks like NASA will actually be cut either way.