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发帖数: 174 | 1 http://blogs.nature.com/news/2012/09/looming-cutbacks-threaten-
Sweeping US budget cuts set to begin in 2013 would reduce federal research
and development funds by $57.5 billion over the next five years, according
to a report released on 27 September by the American Association for the
Advancement of Science (AAAS) based in Washington, DC.
Known as a ‘sequester’, the across-the-board cut would come into effect on
2 January, unless Congress can agree on an alternative budget plan to lower
the federal deficit. But with lawmakers adjourned until after the US
presidential election in November, no immediate action appears likely to
forestall the 8-10% budget reductions that were enacted last year in order
to cut $1.2 trillion from the federal budget over the next decade.
“Sequestration is really a long-term challenge,” said Matt Hourihan,
director of the AAAS R&D Budget and Policy Program, in a teleconference.
Hourihan’s analysis tracks expected science and health spending under
sequestration for the next five years, building on 2013 projections released
earlier by the Office of Management and Budget.
By 2017, the AAAS report estimates that the National Institutes of Health (
NIH) would lose $11.3 billion or 7.6% in research and development funding.
Sequestration would cost the National Science Foundation (NSF) $2.1 billion,
and quash research and development funding for NASA to levels not seen
since the 1980s, said Hourihan. A selection of projected cuts spanning the
next five years can be found here.
“The dollars drained from the research pipeline would knock the wind out of
US innovation at the very moment that it is most needed to refuel the
economy,” said Mary Woolley, president of the Virginia-based research
advocacy group Research!America in a recent statement.
“Our pre-eminence in science is being threatened,” said AAAS chief
executive Alan Leshner during the teleconference. He noted that US
investments in research and development are flagging as those of China and
other countries are rapidly increasing. Furthermore, cuts to funding
agencies such as the NIH ”will send a very bad message to younger potential
scientists,” who often depend on research grants to establish their
careers, said Leshner.
At the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, sequestration would slash
at least $50-60 million in annual support, according to senior vice provost
for research Steven Fluharty, who also participated in the teleconference.
According to the university’s estimates, every $1 million cut would cost 23
-27 jobs there. Fluharty said the damage to new and developing University of
Pennsylvania programs would be “possibly irreparable.”
Pennsylvania ranks ninth among state research dollars lost under
sequestration, according to the AAAS report. California, Maryland, and
Virginia top the list as the hardest-hit states.
While the current plan balances cuts between defense and non-defense
programs, science and health agencies could suffer even greater setbacks,
depending on who holds the upper hand in Congress and the White House after
the November election. In March, the Republican-controlled House of
Representatives passed a budget resolution that could shift the burden of
the sequester onto non-defense programs in order to maintain US military
spending.
“Cuts of this scale would push most agency budgets back by at least a
decade,” projected Hourihan.
As the largest funder of non-defense research and development, the NIH would
lose $26.1 billion or 17.5% of its funding, if sequestration cuts were
applied only to non-defense funds. Hourihan found that the NSF could lose $4
.9 billion through 2017 under the House sequestration proposal.
Although the House budget resolution was defeated in the Senate, Hourihan
said similar proposals have emerged before and may again in the future. He
called passage of such a bill unlikely, but “enough of a possibility that
it’s worth the scientific community be aware of.” | l********g
发帖数: 5070 | 2 好，这下能把科研队伍里的混日子的挤出去吧，SHI都要挤出来了 | z*h
发帖数: 773 | | d******o
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