<story><title>Trump, Congress approve largest U.S. research spending increase in a decade</title><url>http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/03/updated-us-spending-deal-contains-largest-research-spending-increase-decade</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>birken</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ll just note from a political perspective, Donald Trump threatened to veto the final budget bill because of the totality of these spending increases.  He was not in favor of these increases.&lt;p&gt;In fact the budget Donald Trump proposed [1] mainly was massive increases in military spending with sharp cuts to many domestic agencies (EPA -25%, Education -5%), including many research agencies they don&amp;#x27;t agree with (like the NOAA [2]).&lt;p&gt;But what happened is many Republicans in the freedom caucus refused to vote for a budget that increased the debt by so much, so a compromise was required as Democratic votes were going to be needed.  So to vastly oversimplify, Republicans wanted higher military spending, Democrats wanted higher domestic spending, and the compromise was reached that everybody got everything and who cares about the national debt.  The bill actually passed in a very bipartisan way, with 62% of republicans and 59% of democrats in the House voting for the final bill, but with many of the &amp;quot;no&amp;quot; votes for different reasons (no DACA solution, debt increase too much, not enough wall spending, etc).&lt;p&gt;So while these increases are good (if you happen to like R&amp;amp;D spending), they aren&amp;#x27;t due to congress shifting their spending priorities, they are just due to a massive increase in the debt.&lt;p&gt;1: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.washingtonpost.com&amp;#x2F;graphics&amp;#x2F;2018&amp;#x2F;politics&amp;#x2F;trump-budget-2019&amp;#x2F;?utm_term=.1b35d6134447&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.washingtonpost.com&amp;#x2F;graphics&amp;#x2F;2018&amp;#x2F;politics&amp;#x2F;trump-...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;2: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.aip.org&amp;#x2F;fyi&amp;#x2F;2017&amp;#x2F;trump-budget-cuts-noaa-16-slashes-research-funding-even-deeper&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.aip.org&amp;#x2F;fyi&amp;#x2F;2017&amp;#x2F;trump-budget-cuts-noaa-16-slash...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Trump, Congress approve largest U.S. research spending increase in a decade</title><url>http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/03/updated-us-spending-deal-contains-largest-research-spending-increase-decade</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>melling</author><text>How would the world be different if the US spent more on research over the past 50 years?  If the Human Genome Project had been completed in 1993 instead of 2003, for example, would our knowledge be 10-20 years ahead of where we are now?&lt;p&gt;Knowledge we would be discovering 2038 might be discovered this year.  If there is some sort of Moore’s Law for investment in research, by 2050, we’d have technology from 2150 at the current pace?</text></comment>