BIG CUTS FOR SCIENCE?

House Republicans have a proposal for cutting spending starting next month: Summary here

To emphasize, the proposal is for cutting funds already allocated for this year as well as for the coming year.

A few numbers:

NIH cuts for 2011:

• $260M, inflationary increases on non-competing grants ($260M for next year)
• $ 48.5M, Office of the director (Common Fund ) ($66M for next year)
• $ 77.3M, buildings and facilities ($0.1M for next year)
• $300M, eliminate global AIDS transfer (this program? ) ($300M for next year)
• $304M, eliminate Project BioShield Special Reserve Fund Transfer ($304M for next year)
• $639.5M, general reduction to 2008 levels ($639.5 for next year)

NSF cuts for 2011:

• $150M for research and related activities ($550M next year)
• $ 62.5M for equipment and facilities construction ($110M for next year)
• $ 70M for education and human resources ($85M for next year)

All told, about $1.5B for NIH (~5% of NIH's $31B budget) and $300M for NSF (~5% of NSF's $7B budget).

These are big cuts, but to keep things in perspective, NSF's 2011 budget is 6.7% higher than 2010, and the cuts at this point are simply proposals.

The challenge is that both NSF and NIH make multi-year commitments, which means that any cuts either have to be passed on to existing grants or taken disproportionately out of new awards. If they're smart, they'll try to spread the pain rather broadly.