"Tough Choices to Build an Economy that Lasts"
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Faced with an American public skeptical of his leadership, potential 2012 opponents skewering him at every opportunity, a relentlessly hostile House GOP, a dysfunctional Senate that is sending Maine moderate Republican Olympia Snowe into retirement, and an economy gradually recovering but still with high unemployment, huge deficits, and a growing national debt, President Obama released his FY 2013 budget proposals on February 14.
Reiterating his theme from the State of the Union address, the President emphasized that this budget will help build an "Economy that Lasts." At the same time, in his Cabinet Secretaries and other Administration spokespersons testimony to congressional committees, the phrase most often heard is that "tough choices" were necessary in assembling the FY 2013 proposed budget.
The President proposes that the federal government spend $3.8 trillion in FY 2013. That total includes mandatory spending on Medicare, Medicaid, and other programs outside the control of the appropriations process as well as interest on the national debt. The discretionary spending portion of the budget designates $851 billion as "security" spending and $410 for "non-security" spending. The President's budget projects the deficit decreasing from $1.327 trillion in FY 2012 to $968 billion in FY 2013. Looked at as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product, this drops the deficit from 8.5 percent to 5.5 percent. This, however, assumes the non-extension of the Bush tax cuts after they expire at the end of 2012.
Funding levels for appropriated spending are governed by the Budget Control Act of 2011, which set caps on allocations in this category. The President's proposed budget for FY 2013 for this spending is $1.043 trillion. The agreed-upon cap is $1.047 trillion. Proposed appropriated spending for non-security areas is $356.8 billion, down from over $400 billion in FY 2010. Security agencies' funding would be $686 billion, similar to the past four years. Republicans in the House are currently debating whether to renege on the agreement and pass a FY 2013 budget resolution with a lower cap.
Also part of the Budget Control Act is the threat of across-the-board (ATB) cuts or sequestration starting in January 2013 if certain deficit reduction targets are not met. The Administration believes it can meet the targets with its new budget proposals. The sequestration would hit defense and non-defense programs equally, and many in Congress are loath to seeing the Defense budget decline. Therefore, the expectation is that political and budgetary machinations will take place to avoid the ATB cuts.
Science and Technology Budgets
In his message accompanying the release of the FY 2013 proposed budget, the President notes that: "This Budget also puts an emphasis on the basic research that leads to the breakthroughs of tomorrow, which increasingly is no longer being conducted by the private sector, as well as helping inventors bring their innovations from laboratory to market."
Speaking on February 14 at the Research and Development (R&D) budget rollout at The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Presidential Science Adviser John Holdren declared that: "The priority the President attaches to R&D and Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) education, as reflected in his 2013 Budget, is justified by the historic truth that investments in innovation and education today will more than pay for themselves tomorrow."
The priorities for the Administration for Federal R&D in the FY 2013 budget are: Promoting Sustainable Economic Growth and Job Creation; Moving Toward a Clean Energy Picture; Defeating Dangerous Diseases and Achieving Better Health Outcomes; Understanding Global Climate Change and its Impacts; Stewardship of Natural Resources; and Science and Technology for Security.
Proposed funding for overall Federal R&D support in FY 2013 would increase by one percent to $140.8 billion over FY 2012, but would remain below FY 2011's $142.7 billion. In FY 2013, basic research would increase by one percent to $30.6 billion and applied research would go up by five percent to $33.4 billion. In basic research the largest increases are at the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Department of Energy. For applied research, the Department of Commerce receives the largest increase for the Administration's emphasis on advanced manufacturing. The Development budget has a slight decrease to $74.2 billion, with a two percent decline for the Department of Defense.
Despite another Government Accountability Office (GAO) report noting the large duplication of STEM education programs across the government, the Administration proposes spending $3 billion in many agencies for this activity in FY 2013. The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) produced an inventory of these programs in late 2011 disagreeing somewhat with GAO's conclusions and is working on a STEM education strategy it hopes to release in the coming months.
The U.S. Global Change Research program would receive $2.6 billion, an increase of 5.6 percent over FY 2012 for its multi-agency effort to understand, predict, mitigate and adapt to global change. Major roles are played by NSF, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and NASA.
National Science Foundation
In announcing the FY 2013 budget, NSF Director Surbra Suresh noted: "This investment in science and engineering reflects an increase in core research funding and moves our nation forward by connecting the science and engineering enterprise with potential economic, societal and educational benefits in areas critical to job creation and a growing economy."
Although not as ambitious as the FY 2012 proposal of $7.767 billion, the Administration has asked for $7.373 billion for FY 2013, an increase of 4.8 percent. Although Congress rejected the huge proposed increase for FY 2012, it did provide NSF with close to a two percent boost over FY 2011. With strong support by the chairs of the appropriations subcommittees that consider NSF's budget, Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) and Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), the agency came away from the conference committee with a higher number than either the House or Senate had provided in their original considerations of NSF's FY 2012 budget.
The Research and Related Activities Account (R&RA), which funds all the research directorates and a number of offices at the Foundation, would receive a 5.2 percent increase to $5.983 billion for FY 2013. The raise from FY 2011 to FY 2012 was 1.4 percent.
NSF would continue to focus on interdisciplinary, cross-directorate programs in FY 2012. Some continue over from FY 2012 including: Cyberinfrastructure Framework for 21st Century Science and Engineering (CIF-21); Comprehensive Cybersecurity Initiative; Science, Engineering and Educational for Sustainability (SEES), Integrated Support Promoting Interdisciplinary Research and Education (ISPIRE); and the 2011-introduced Innovation Corps.
Speaking at the COSSA'S 30th Anniversary Colloquium last November, Suresh pronounced the relevance, importance, and centrality of the social sciences and the seamless integration of the social sciences with the natural sciences and engineering as the key to the science future. The importance of the social sciences, Suresh asserted, comes from science's role in meeting the needs of society and from the new globalized culture and its breakthroughs in telecommunications and transportation.
During 2011, Myron Gutmann, Assistant Director for the Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences directorate (SBE), led an outreach effort to the community to provide input into a research agenda for these sciences in the coming decade. This activity culminated with the release in November of Rebuilding the Mosaic. The report identifies four major topic areas for focusing future research: population change; sources of disparities; communication, language, and linguistics; and technology, new media, and social networks.
In FY 2012, NSF sought a 12 percent increase over FY 2010 funding for the SBE directorate that would have moved its budget to over $300 million. Since Congress did not increase the NSF budget sufficiently to allow this increase to occur, SBE wound up with $254.2 million in FY 2012, up from 247.3 million in FY 2011. The proposed SBE budget for FY 2013 is $259.6 million, a more modest 2.1 percent increase.
After seeing its budget decline from FY 2011 to FY 2012, the Administration is proposing a 5.6 percent increase to $875.6 million for the Education and Human Resources directorate (EHR) in FY 2013. The Division of Research on Learning in Formal and Informal Settings (DRL) has a proposed FY 2013 budget of $309.5 million, an increase of $19 million from FY 2012. This division would lead the core research and development effort that hopes to provide a coherent body of knowledge and evidence about STEM learning. This includes developing new instruments for promoting and assessing learning.
NIH and Other Health Agencies
The FY 2013 proposed budget provides no increase for the National Institutes of Health leaving it at the FY 2012 level of $30.987 billion. The budget does have funding for the start-up of the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, which has absorbed many of the activities of the former National Center for Research Resources. Since the overall budget is static, most of the Institutes receive either slight increases or small decreases in the request.
NIH is also proposing to reduce funding for the National Children's Study, designed to study the effects of genetics and the environment on the growth, development, and health of children across the United States. This would lead to the loss of the probability sample and the generalizability of the results as NIH studies alternatives that would save money.
The Office of Behavioral and Social Science Research (OBSSR) also has no increase requested for FY 2013. Nonetheless, the Office's plans include facilitating: (a) the next generation of basic behavioral and social sciences research; (b) trans-disciplinary "team science" that integrates biomedical, behavioral and social-ecological perspectives; (c) research that looks at how individual, group, and societal factors interact; and (d) the translation, implementation, dissemination and maintenance of best practices and proven strategies that reduce the burden of chronic disease and eliminate inequities in health and healthcare. OBSSR will continue to support the OppNet program in basic behavioral science. OppNet will be funded at $20 million.
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has a slight increase proposed for FY 2013, but a significant increase for its Patient-Centered Health Research, which seeks to inform health-care decisions by providing evidence on the effectiveness, benefits, and harms of different treatment outcomes. In FY 2013, the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation will continue its focus on policy development, research, analysis, evaluation and data development in support of Affordable Care Act (ACA) implementation.
At the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention the FY 2013 proposed budget includes an increase for the National Center for Health Statistics. The boost is the same as requested in FY 2012, which Congress did not grant. There is also a proposed increase for HIV/AIDS prevention. The Chronic Disease and Prevention activity also gets a significant boost and receives significant funding from the Prevention and Public Health Fund of the ACA.
Research and Data in the Departments
At the Department of Agriculture, the President has just announced his intention to nominate Sonny Ramaswamy, Dean of the College of Agricultural Sciences at Oregon State University, as the new head of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA). The President has asked once more for a significant increase for the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI), the department's major competitive grant program. With the demise of earmarks, funding for AFRI has crept up in recent years, but not at the great leaps the administration had sought. There is a substantial increase for the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) to complete the Census of Agriculture.
The U.S. Census Bureau has an increase for FY 2013 that would allow it to complete the Economic Census, the Census of Governments, and continue its research program toward a redesigned 2020 count. The American Community Survey will serve as a test-bed for these studies, including assessing the use of the Internet as a response mechanism. The Bureau of Economic Analysis seeks increased funds to implement the much requested, Quarterly Gross Domestic Product by industry survey, and to produce more useful data on how people get and spend their money, now called Decomposition of Personal Income.
With still no congressional reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the Administration continues its challenge to the States, and soon school districts, to improve through its Race to the Top (RTTP) initiative. The Administration now wants to extend the RTTT idea to higher education and proposes funds to drive reform at the state level to help students complete college faster. The Department has also resuscitated its First in the World proposal, rejected by Congress in 2011. Once again, at about half the level proposed for FY 2012, the Administration hopes to transform the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) by providing "venture capital" to encourage innovative approaches to improving college completion, research support to build the evidence of effectiveness needed to identify successful strategies, and resources to scale up and disseminate successful strategies.
The Administration has abandoned any attempt to revive the funding for the Title VI and Fulbright-Hays international education and foreign language programs, accepting the forty percent reductions from FY 2011 and preparing a new direction for these programs. The Javits Fellowship program, which provided funding for graduate students in the social sciences, humanities and arts, has been subsumed by the Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need (GAAAN) program. The FY 2013 proposal does not include any funds for new Javits Fellows and it is unclear whether the GAAAN program will designate the Javits' areas as ones with national need. In addition, the Thurgood Marshall Legal Opportunity program is gone. The Administration proposed, as others before it had done, defunding many small education programs. The difference is that in this era of huge deficits and concern about the national debt, Congress has accepted these eliminations.
The Institute of Education Sciences has increases for research and evaluation that include funding for a Pell Grant evaluation and the continuation of the construction of state wide data systems for tracking individual students with a new emphasis on following these people through post-secondary education and into the workforce.
At the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), funding cuts to the University Programs account has resulted in the suspension of the fellowship and scholarship program. Congress was not kind to the Research, Development and Innovation account in FY 2012 and the FY 2013 proposal asks to restore funding for this major source of research support including some social and behavioral science. Improving behavioral screening techniques and understanding the economic incentives for cybersecurity breaches are among the topics in which DHS shows continued interest.
At the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Office of Policy Development and Research has a proposed increase. It will also receive funds from the continuing Transformation Initiative, which sets aside program funds for a variety of departmental-wide initiatives including research and data collection. The Office is also in the midst of developing a Roadmap for a future research agenda.
Laurie Robinson has departed as Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Justice Programs (OJP) at the Department of Justice, and has been replaced in an acting capacity, by her principal deputy, Mary Lou Leary. Both the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) and the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) have proposed increases for FY 2013. NIJ would continue implementing the recommendations of the 2010 National Research Council report. BJS would continue its revitalization of the National Criminal Victimization Survey. Both would again benefit from a proposed two percent set-aside of OJP program funds.
The Department of Labor has also proposed for its Employment and Training Administration a set-aside of program funds for research, demonstrations, pilots and evaluations. Unlike the HUD and DOJ set-asides, which supplement rather than supplant regular appropriations, Labor has zeroed out the regular budgets for these activities. At the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the National Longitudinal Surveys are under threat as the 1979 and 1997 cohorts are proposed for cuts as part of an elongation process that was supposed to fund a new cohort. Unfortunately, Congress did not provide enough funds to BLS to start the new cohort, leaving the elongation process to occur anyway.
Funding for the exchange programs at the Department of State has an increase, but for the most part the appropriations for these efforts have leveled off after significant increases during the Bush Administration. The Fulbright program has a large increase as a result of its absorbing the Regional Graduate Fellowships program. There will be a continued emphasis on the "Frontline States" - Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.
At the Department of Transportation, the Research and Innovation Transportation Administration (RITA), which houses the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, has been elevated into a new office of Assistant Secretary for Research and Statistics. BTS has an increase to reinstate the National Long Distance Data Travel program and to revive the Journal of Transportation and Statistics.
The National Archives and Records Administration has a significant decline in its proposed FY 2013 funding as a result of the Electronic Records Initiative moving into an operation and maintenance mode. The National Historical Publications and Records Commission grants program continues to lose funding.
The National Endowment for the Humanities has a slight increase. This Administration's initiative is called Bridging Cultures, which encourages projects that explore the ways in which cultures from around the globe, as well as the myriad subcultures within America's borders, have influenced American society. In the meantime, this Administration once again asks Congress to defund the last Administration's big initiative; We the People. Congress has not cooperated.
Finally, the United States Institute of Peace, having survived an attempt to remove its federal funding in early 2011, (there was dismay at the cost of its new headquarters) has a slight increase.
In a presidential and congressional election year budget politics take on added significance. Most recent election years have resulted in post-contest lame-duck sessions. An exception was 1996. Following the trauma of the government shutdown earlier, the Clinton Administration and the Congress, including the Newt Gingrich-led Republican majority House, actually finished the appropriations process on time. Do not bet on that happening this year with the sequestration or across-the-board cuts hanging like a sword above the policymakers' heads alongside the expiration of the Bush tax cuts, and other contentious spending issues. We are likely once again to see down-to-the-wire negotiations as the end-game in the appropriations process.
Howard J. Silver, March 2012.
