Defense Last In WH Science Goals

From DoD Buzz:

The Obama administration’s budget guidance for 2011 makes clear that basic research spending will stay flat in most areas or decline, including at the Pentagon.

Money will first go to research that can “drive economic recovery, job creation, and economic growth,” says the guidance issued in an Aug. 4 memo by White House Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag. The administration also makes clear that since they expect little new money for science and technology funding then government agencies must move dollars to what it calls four “practical challenges.”

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My Comment: Many of our greatest technological and engineering accomplishments have come from the labs of Darpa and other defense related laboratories. So much for the campaign rhetoric that the sciences will benefit from an Obama administration. In fact .... it appears that it is the science that conforms to the political agenda of the White House that will now get the funding.