Advocacy Archive
The Last Budget Show: Clinton Finale for NSF, NIH in FY 2001
March 31, 2000
Gas prices got you down? Election worries keeping you up? Stock market got you spinning? Good, because up, down, and spinning are just the tickets to interpret this year's federal budget debate and the outlook for behavioral and social science funding.
This year's picture started rosy: The final Clinton budget asks for 17.3 percent more for the National Science Foundation. The even better news for psychology is that NSF's behavioral and social science directorate is slated for an almost 20 percent increase. But wait - there's more. Within that, behavioral and cognitive sciences would be increased by more than 30 percent! At NIH, the Administration request is a modest, even disappointing, 5.6 percent increase. True, this is double the President's request of last year, but way short of the 15 percent sought by several current, former, and about-to-be-former members of Congress pushing to double the NIH budget. Common wisdom has the Administration low-balling knowing that Congress will give NIH heaps more.
The picture has been less clear recently, but it's early and we're still at the symbolic and rhetorical stage. Later on, there will be a months-long, tortuous, nuts-and-bolts process through which the federal budget is taken apart and reassembled in Congress - that's when numbers really start to gel. This process will be even more intense this year because of the November elections, with all sides staking out positions on reducing the national debt, protecting Social Security, expanding health care, and reducing taxes. Add a projected shortened legislative session, the pending retirement of two critical NIH supporters -- Rep. John Porter (R-IL) and Sen. Connie Mack (R-FL) -- and we have a situation where Congress is trying to do much more on NSF and NIH in less time than previous years.
Right now, one important Senate committee (of several that ultimately will speak) includes $1.1 billion additional for NIH, more than the President asked for, but less than needed to meet 15 percent. When this budget reaches the Senate floor (as early as next Tuesday), Senators Arlen Specter (R-PA) and Tom Harkin (D-PA) will introduce an amendment to pave the way for a 15 percent increase. Even if that doesn't pass, it's a strong signal by Sens. Specter and Harkin, who are the Chair and Ranking Minority Member of another Senate committee that will write a much more specific NIH funding bill later this year.
Meanwhile, a House-passed budget is silent on NIH, but provides a $100 million increase for "science" and a strong statement of support for NSF, saying that budget levels "assume an amount of funding which ensures that the National Science Foundation is a priority." This is a sure sign that Congress ultimately will give NSF a significant boost. We're less sure of the ultimate amount.
Oh, there is one more complication. Beyond these FY 2001 budget machinations, Congress is wrestling with a bill to change the current year's budget, in part to get rid of the many end-of-the-last-session budget gimmicks that allowed the bill to pass, but which nobody thought were a good idea. Yesterday, the House passed this "supplemental" spending bill, a bloated $12.7 billion package that would increase funds for the Columbia drug war and other foreign and military aid, but also would repeal a delay in spending at NIH - one gimmick - which would make it easier to increase NIH in 2001.
The same legislation is pending in the Senate, where Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-MS) and appropriations committee chair Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) may be on a collision course. Sen. Stevens and supporters want the bill and scheduled committee action for next Tuesday. But Sen. Lott and supporters don't want the bill because of its size, and because it will use up too much of the already-limited time available in this year's legislative session. As an aside, APS has been working with both the House and Senate on this bill to encourage additional funding for federal drug programs, which we hope will translate into more research funding for the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
More as it happens....
Best, Alan