Trump's new budget cuts all but a favored few science programs

[William Seger]

For the fourth straight year, President Donald Trump has proposed sizable reductions in federal research spending. To be sure, it’s no longer news that the president wants deep cuts to the budgets of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and science programs at the Department of Energy (DOE) and NASA. And in past years, Congress has rejected similar proposals and provided increases. But Trump’s 2021 request brings into sharper focus what his administration values across the research landscape—and what it views as unimportant.

During a 10 February teleconference on the research portion of the $4.8 trillion budget request, administration representatives refused to address the proposed cuts to many areas of basic research and instead highlighted the few bright spots for science. For example, when asked about research on climate change, a discipline targeted for cuts, White House science adviser Kelvin Droegemeier changed the subject. “We want to keep this focused on artificial intelligence [AI] and quantum information science [QIS],” he said—two fields the administration has selected for spending increases.

Droegemeier also insisted that the president’s overall request of $142 billion for research would be a 6% increase. In fact, it represents a 9% decline over 2020 spending; the 6% increase is based on Trump’s 2020 request, which Congress ignored.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/02/trump-s-new-budget-cuts-all-favored-few-science-programs

[cstanleytech]

1. Still his budget proposal is a giant shit on a stick for everyone except the 1%.