This time, the wolf may really be at the door. A war in the Middle East, stepped-up homeland security, tax cuts, and rising health-care costs have produced a deficit of $413 billion. As postelection Washington settles in for another season of policy and budget deliberations, 2005 may be the year that science—always dependent on government support—could take a financial beating.
Nonetheless, many billions will be forthcoming for research, and America’s scientific enterprise will survive. But it will lack the fiscal zip and buoyancy that has propelled things in recent decades. Gross spending on research and development exceeded $300 billion in government and private funding in 2004, but that number is misleading. Industry far outspends government in support of research and development, providing an estimated 64 percent of the total. And industry cash is concentrated on development, leaving government as the mainstay of university-based basic research. Big, bold, multiyear research like ...
