National Science Foundation Cuts

Jonathan Chait makes some good points in this article at the Cincinnati Post that should be used in any budget prioritization effort . There are certain things that only the federal government can do: National Defense and funding of the National Science Foundation (NSF) for basic science studies being among them. He's notes that the NSF budget will be cut next year resulting in 1,000 fewer research grants.

However, he also notes that the NSF budget was recently doubled. The story is missing specifics on how much the NSF budget is being cut by. It would also be helpful to know if the NSF fully absorbed the recent doubling of funds. Could it simply be that the NSF got too much money too soon and needs to take a breather? I would think that with a doubling of the budget, this makes for a doubling of the effort associated with reviewing the work product of all those research projects as well.


I'll send him and email and ask him these questions and will report back here.