WASHINGTON, D.C.--Next year's federal budget may not contain a penny more for research and education if Republican Senator John McCain (AZ) is elected U.S. president and has his way with Congress. An aide to the McCain campaign delivered that sober fiscal message today to science lobbyists, who pressed him unsuccessfully for leeway in the candidate's promise to curb federal spending by imposing a 1-year freeze on domestic discretionary spending.
"The purpose of the freeze is to evaluate each and every program, looking at which ones are worthwhile and which are a waste of taxpayer dollars," Ike Brannon, an economist and senior policy adviser to McCain, told the Task Force on the Future of American Innovation at a private gathering in Washington, D.C. The task force, a coalition of scientific and professional societies, had heard a more upbeat message in July from aides for Democratic Senator Barack Obama (IL), who has proposed doubling over 10 years the budgets of a host of U.S. science agencies.
I understand evaluating programs to see if they are a waste of money but whats the purpose of the freeze? They can evaluate the programs with out stopping the funding to those that are needed.
