Marcus Peacock stepped to the front of a crowded auditorium in the headquarters building of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) early on a February morning and began an energetic presentation of the Bush administration’s fiscal year 2003 science budget. Peacock, a program associate director at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), was succinct.
“The nation’s priorities are defeating terrorism abroad, protecting the homeland, and reviving the economy,” he said. All of President Bush’s FY 2003 budget choices must be read against that backdrop, he continued, and the national security priorities have affected the shape of the R&D budget, including science funding.
Peacock went on to note that the federal budget proposal includes nearly $112 billion for science and technology, the highest R&D budget ever proposed. To put the budget in perspective, he said, total US public and private R&D expenditures exceed the combined R&D spending...
