Promising Year Ends Badly After Fiscal Showdown Squeezes Science

摘要

The U.S. science community's reaction to the 2008 federal budget adopted last month has been uniformly bleak. "A step backwards,... a missed opportunity,... a keen disappointment" declared press releases from advocates, including AAAS (which publishes Science), about a belated, $555 billion spending package (HR 2764) that was cobbled together and approved in a 4-day rush before the holidays. Those sad words are a reaction to the last-minute rollback of substantial planned increases for science that occurred after the Democratic-controlled Congress lost a showdown with the Republican White House.