Senators: Reduce research funding

By Fred W. Weingarten
CRA Staff

Last month two key Republican senators influential in defense policy sent a letter to President Clinton harshly criticizing his spending priorities and recommending severe cuts to defense research funding.

In their December 3 letter, Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and John Warner (R-VA) raised their concerns about declining defense readiness and a lagging Defense modernization program.

In addressing the question of from where funding would come, the senators said: "We have identified nearly $8 billion in fiscal 1995 appropriations for programs which are wasteful and which contribute little, if anything, to our defense posture....We request that you immediately notify Congress...that you intend to defer obligation of these funds."

Programs they proposed eliminating included:

• The Technology Reinvestment Program, budgeted at $550 million. Proposal: "Rescind fiscal 1995 appropriations and terminate planned program."
• Defense conversion programs, budgeted at $1.5 billion. Proposal: "Rescind fiscal 1995 appropriation for dual-use and conversion programs, including manufacturing technology, SEMATECH, advanced simulation, etc."
• Medical and university research, budgeted at $1.5 billion. Proposal: "Rescind fiscal 1995 appropriation for medical research and $1.1 billion for university research grants, most of which is not defense specific."

On its face, the letter was a message from two senators to the president--it was not a legislative action. But given the influence of these senators on defense policy and their positions on the Senate Armed Services Committee, the letter was viewed by many observers as an early statement of Republican spending priorities and attitudes toward research.

Last year McCain was the ranking minority member of the Subcommittee on Military Readiness and Defense Infrastructure, and Warner was the ranking minority member of the Subcommittee on Coalition Defense and Reinforcing Forces. Both senators are expected to play important roles in the 104th Congress on the Armed Services Committee, chaired by Strom Thurmond (R-SC).

The effects of these cuts--should they take place--on the computing research community are hard to estimate with much precision. Last year, faced with proposals for similar cuts in university research funding, administration officials estimated the following percentages of Defense Department university funding: math and computer science, 50%; engineering sciences, 42%; and electrical engineering, 53%. Nearly 50% of current graduate student support in computer science comes from DOD funding.

"To cancel DOD university research is to trade technological superiority tomorrow for readiness today--at a time when no other military power is comparable to the United States," said Anita Jones, director of Defense Research and Engineering. "This is a very poor trade."

Kenneth H. Bacon, a DOD public affairs officer, defended the administration's spending priorities and, in particular, the technology reinvestment and Defense conversion programs, saying, "Ultimately the Defense establishment is only as good as its people and only as good as the nation's industrial base."