Budget woes: astro $ at AAS

By catdynamics on January 7, 2007.

NSF town hall meeting today was depressing.
The failure of the 2006 Congress to pass a budget is turning to catastrophe.
I don't blame the democrats from ducking the trap and going for a continuing resolution, am hoping the science budgets will be the pieces exempted, but am not holding my breath.

Cutting earmarks out is also good thing in general, except of course when they are our earmarks.
Eg a big part of the squeeze on the NASA science directorate are the unfunded earmark mandates, but the earmarks also kept Hubble going through the period when it was to be killed; and SIM right now is kept alive on an earmark.
If the budget reverts to plain 2006 with no earmarks and no supplements, then Terrestrial Planet Finder and Space Interferometry Mission are in even more serious trouble.

NYTimes article on this here - H/T Quantum Pontiff

I guess next we get to be depressed about the news at NASA

Sean provides a DoE perspective

More like this

Earmarks and the Ridicule of Science

There's an interesting exchange over at the Reality-Based Community around the topic of "earmarks" for science, like the grizzly bear DNA study McCain keeps mocking.

continuing resolution

Congress today takes on an omnibus continuing resolution spending bill for 9 out of the 11 appropriations for the current fiscal year. The bill proposes to continue funding for agencies at the 2006 level, with all earmarks stripped out.

Republican Deficit Scold Sen. Gregg Profited from Own Earmark

Remember when Obama Commerce Secretary nominee Republican Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH) decided not to take the job on account of Gregg's unwillingness to join an administration that was fiscally irresponsible.

These guys really hate science

McCain once again whined about studying bear DNA, and it's clear that the decrepit old man doesn't have a clue about the value of biological research.

Are you heading to the "town hall"? I have one perspective on what is going to be said there, but others would be interesting.

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