Whether it was a moment of sympathy or condescension wasn’t clear, but the tone of the budget hearing before the House Committee on Science was set when Representative Bart Gordon leaned into his microphone and told the Bush administration’s chief scientist, “I recognize you are just a messenger doing the best you can with what you have.”
The “messenger” was Office of Science and Technology Policy Director John Marburger, and Gordon was making clear before Marburger uttered a word that the science committee wasn’t happy with the administration’s proposed fiscal year 2005 science and technology budget. “Dr Marburger will tell us today that this budget proposes to spend more on R&D than any budget in history. That is technically true, but the biggest part of this R&D increase is for weapons development, which does very little for the broader economy.”
Tennessee Democrat Gordon’s views were shared by Republican Committee Chairman...
