SSTI Digest

The Administration’s FY 2008 budget request for the Department of Defense (DoD) totals $481.4 billion, an 11.3 percent increase over FY07. [Note: DoD’s FY07 appropriations bill was one of only two passed before the current fiscal year began. As a result, SSTI is able to provide comparisons between the FY08 request and the FY07 appropriations. Variance between FY08 request and FY07 appropriations is provided in parentheses.]

 

Science and technology in the department does not share the rapid rate of growth, though. As has been the case in every presidential budget proposal since FY02, the Administration’s FY08 request for DoD basic, applied and advanced technology development is less than the prior year appropriation. All stages of R&D are expecting cuts in this year’s budget: the request for basic research has fallen to $1.43 billion (8 percent decrease), applied research has been cut to $4.36 billion (18.6 percent decrease), and the request for advanced technology development has been reduced even more sharply to $4.99 billion (22.4 percent decrease).

 

According to the U.S. Department of Education (ED), federal funding represents only 8.9 percent of America’s spending on elementary and secondary education during the 2006-07 school year. That share in FY 2008 would be $56 billion according to the Administration’s budget request for the agency.



As in previous requests, the Administration’s FY08 budget request strives to eliminate a large number of programs, replacing many with a consolidated, but smaller, block grant program. Many of the 44 programs slated for termination address specific fields of study or population groups (e.g., economics education, mentally ill). The largest program on the chopping block, at $770 million, is for Federal Supplemental Education Opportunity Grants, which provides need-based grant aid to eligible undergraduate students to help reduce financial barriers to postsecondary education.



The FY08 education budget includes specialized funding toward several K-12 math and science programs:

The Department of Energy (DOE) budget request for FY 2008 totals $24.3 billion, a 3 percent increase above the FY07 request. Key priorities in the budget are tied to President Bush’s Advanced Energy Initiative, Hydrogen Fuel Initiative, and American Competitiveness Initiative. The initiatives would affect most directly the department’s four energy offices, which together would receive a 20 percent boost in funding under the proposed budget and the Office of Science, which would receive a 7 percent increase. The Office of Fossil Energy and the Office of Nuclear Energy are expecting the biggest gains, at 33 percent and 38 percent, respectively.

The lion’s share of the $697.3 billion FY 2008 budget request for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is allocated towards Medicare (55.4 percent) and Medicaid (29.0 percent) spending. Discretionary programs, such as the Food and Drug Administration, Centers of Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), represent only 9.9 percent of the total HHS budget.

 

The Administration’s FY 2008 budget request for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) totals $46.4 billion in funding, an increase of 8 percent over the FY 2007 request. The key priority of this year’s request is a $13 billion initiative for border security and immigration enforcement. 

 

The FY08 request provides $799 million for the Science and Technology Directorate, which oversees the department’s research, development, testing and evaluation activities. Last year, the directorate saw its funding request drop by 33 percent, as the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office spun off as a separate DHS office. Even after the reorganization, the FY08 budget cuts an additional $200 million from the directorate’s FY07 request of $1.002 billion.

 

The Administration's FY 2008 budget request for the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is $36.15 billion (31 percent decrease from the FY06 appropriation level – mostly due to a FY06 supplemental one-time funding for disaster relief). The department’s major priority for FY08 will be increasing home ownership.

 

The office of Policy Development and Research (PD&R) would receive $65 million this year. It would be split between $40 million for the Research and Technology studies and testing and $25 million for University Programs, which provide funds to minority-specialized colleges and universities to form partnerships for revitalization activities with their surrounding communities.

 

Community Development Block Grants