Scott Garrett: “I, too, echo the words of my colleagues who are in support of the overall funding of the National Science Foundation…”

“I, too, echo the words of my colleagues who are in support of the overall funding of the National Science Foundation, and I offer this amendment to H.R. 1867, which I hope will provide incentives for the NSF to identify waste and any abuse within the Agency, but also, very importantly, to help identify those programs which are either underperforming or simply just not working. I believe this legislation will help be a model of fiscal responsibility. It is similar to the legislation we just heard from in two respects. H.R. 1867 authorizes the National Science Foundation to increase their spending, which goes to the point of the gentleman from Michigan was saying before, by 7 percent, and again in 2009 and 2010. The point we must make here, though, is inflation has remained constant during this same time period at around 3 percent. So when we purport to be so concerned about the taxpayers' dollars and the debt we are leaving our children, which I just heard from the gentleman from the other side of the aisle previously, how can we justify programmic increases for research that are actually more than twice the rate of inflation? As I referenced before, when I go back to my constituents back at home in town hall meetings and the like, they are not seeing 7 percent increases in their wages and salaries.”