Senate Budget Resolution Abolishes DOC, OTA; Cuts NSF, NASA, DOE
“I’m thrilled...to present the first balanced budget in about 25 years.” --Sen. Pete Domenici
Yesterday, Chairman Pete Domenici (R-NM) of the Senate Budget Committee released his committee’s version of a plan to balance the federal budget by 2002. The plan would make a total reduction of $961 billion to projected spending over the next seven years. In announcing the resolution, Domenici remarked, “It responds to the unequivocal expressed American public majority that wants a balanced budget.”
To achieve this reduction, the budget resolution includes the “gradual” elimination of the Department of Commerce and many of its functions; the abolishment of the Office of Technology Assessment; and cuts below the current level of spending for programs under the General Science, Space and Technology budget function. This budget function includes NASA, DOE’s basic research programs, and NSF. Under the Senate plan, NSF would experience a $100 million reduction in research funding over the seven years, and be instructed to “refocus on its original mission of basic scientific research.” Academic infrastructure and major research equipment would also be cut. An expected $2.7 billion would be saved by NASA management reforms, and the plan endorses the “President’s freeze and reduction in outyears in DOE research.”
The gradual elimination of the Department of Commerce is expected to “eventually” save over $1 billion per year. Commerce activities that would be relocated within the federal government include the Patent and Trademark Office, the Bureau of the Census, the Bureau of Economic Analysis, most of the Export Administration, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), although NOAA funding would be reduced by five percent. The section on Commerce makes no mention of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), but states, “the rest of the department’s activities in this function are not crucial responsibilities of the federal government or else duplicate responsibilities that are handled by other federal agencies.”
Domenici’s plan would achieve much of its savings by slowing the growth of entitlement programs (including Medicare and Medicaid, but not Social Security). Defense spending would decline for a period, then return to its current level, as proposed by the Clinton Administration. A seven-year total of $190 billion would be saved from non-defense discretionary spending, which includes General Science, Space and Technology. For programs in this category, the plan assumes a baseline of current (FY 1995) spending for seven years, without considering such factors as inflation. According to the Washington Post, if inflation over that period is taken into account, the non-defense discretionary cuts would total $446 billion. The Senate Budget Committee does not provide any tax cuts, but allows for future tax cuts once the Congressional Budget Office has certified that the budget is firmly on a path toward balance.
Later this week, the House Budget Committee, chaired by John Kasich (R-OH), will release details of its version of the budget resolution. Future FYIs will provide more details on that plan.
