The Boffo Science Budget Won’t Last / Science News

The Boffo Science Budget Won’t Last / Science News: "The boffo science budget won’t last
By Janet Raloff
Web edition : Thursday, April 30th, 2009
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Speakers at today’s Forum on Science and Technology Policy, hosted in Washington, D.C., by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, spoke time and again about how well science and tech budgets are making out under the new Obama administration. Enjoy this largesse while it lasts, the speakers said — because it may prove just a momentary blip.

This year’s major science-budget uptick and the circumstances driving it are highly “unusual,” observes Stan Collender of Qorvis Communications. “In my 35-plus years of watching the budget, I don’t quite ever remember anything like this.”

The forum invited the impressions of Collender, a one-time stand-up comic, because he also has a reputation as an expert on the U.S. and congressional budget process. His bio notes he's “one of only a handful of people who has worked for the House and Senate Budget Committees.” Having spent his formative years as a committee staffer — from 1975 to '80 — Collender remains a dogged budget wonk."
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