President
Trump on Monday called for cutting spending at the National Science Foundation
(NSF), the government's top funder of nonmedical research, by about $1 billion.
The White House's fiscal 2020 budget proposal recommends lowering NSF's budget
to $7.1 billion, from its current level of $8.1 billion.
The 12
percent decline would exceed the single-digit reduction to overall
nondiscretionary funding in the president's budget request to Congress. The NSF
provides about one-quarter of all federal research grants and covers fields
such as engineering, mathematics, computer science and social sciences. It also
funds the purchase of large-scale scientific equipment.
According to
the NSF website, foundation-funded researchers have gone on to win 236 Nobel
Prizes.
Trump's 2020
budget proposal also calls for dramatically reducing funding for education,
agriculture, health programs, transportation and the State Department. Congress
has largely ignored Trump's previous requests for deep discretionary budget
cuts and has steadily increased NSF funding levels in recent years. This year’s
battle will begin in earnest this week, as spending panels in both the Senate
and the House of Representatives are scheduled to begin to review the
president’s request.
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