US President Barack Obama unveiled his budget proposal for fiscal year 2014 yesterday, in which he outlined his plan to raise $600 billion in new revenue, according to the New York Times. In remarks, Obama said that this budget replaces the across-the-board sequester cuts "with smarter ones, making long-term reforms, eliminating actual waste and programs we don't need anymore," according to a White House transcript.
For the National Institutes of Health, this proposed 2014 budget would give a slight, 1.5 percent increase as compared to 2012 to its coffers, bringing its total funding to $31.3 billion, ScienceInsider reports. "Everything's relative," says Francis Collins, the NIH director, according to ScienceInsider. "Considering what we've been going through in FY '13, what's being proposed here is really gratifying." NIH is funded at $30.8 billion for 2013 under a continuing resolution.
As Daily Scan sister publication GenomeWeb Daily News reports, the National Human Genome Research Institute would receive a 1 percent budget increase under the Obama plan. GWDN notes that NHGRI aims to continue following its strategic plan to focus less on fundamental genomics and more on translating those findings into the clinic.
The National Science Foundation, meanwhile, would see an 8.4 percent increase from 2012 levels, giving it a total budget of $7.6 billion, the Chronicle of Higher Education says, adding that the Department of Energy Office of Science would also see a boost, bringing its budget to $5 billion, a 5.7 percent increase over 2012 levels.
The reaction to the budget has been mixed, a separate ScienceInsider post shows. Representative Lamar Smith (R-Texas) gives the budget proposal "a failing grade," and says the House science committee, which he chairs, will hold hearings on Obama's budget priorities.
Meanwhile, Hunter Rawlings, the president of the Association of American Universities, says that his group "strongly [supports] the President's proposals to eliminate the ill-considered across-the-board sequester and to increase funding for the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy Office of Science, Department of Defense basic research, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and some key student financial aid programs." He adds, though, that the budget isn't perfect and that his group does "not agree with everything in this budget. But it is a strong start."