Steven Holt: “there is much in this budget that is not as it appears. We have just now heard the fact that this actually cuts $90…”

“there is much in this budget that is not as it appears. We have just now heard the fact that this actually cuts $90 million from the President's much touted Leave No Child Behind Act. It cuts back on educational funding. In the area of the environment, the authors of the budget claim to fully fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund; but in fact if you remove from this the account that funds open space and parkland and preserving critical natural resources, if you remove the items that do not belong in there, that are added, that are not really new spending, budget accounting gimmicks, it actually is a reduction. It does not fully fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund. With regard to research and development in science, the authors here have claimed that there is an 11 percent increase. Actually if you do their math correctly, it is really closer to 8 percent. But then if you remove the accounting gimmicks, the things that have been added in there that are not new spending in the National Science Foundation, for example, the sea grant program and EPA education programs, you find out that there is really a growth of perhaps 1 percent. This is not enough. If we shortchange research and development in the United States, we cannot hope to have the kind of economic growth that the authors of this budget resolution are counting on in some magic wand way to get us out of deficit spending. As a Nation we underinvest in research and development.”