President Trump in his budget for fiscal year 2018 proposes the biggest cuts to federal nondefense R&D spending of any administration in a generation, even surpassing President Ronald Reagan, who came the closest more than 30 years ago. According to estimates by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), federal support for R&D would tumble 16.8%, or $12.6 billion, from its current-year level, with disproportionately larger cuts to the National Institutes of Health and the research programs of the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. NSF would be hit with an 11% reduction from its FY 2017 funding level.
Delivered to Congress on 23 May, Trump’s budget proposal adheres closely to the skeletal framework the White House released in March. Although any president’s budget in recent years is routinely declared “dead on arrival” by a large fraction of lawmakers, Trump’s request is certain to...
