President Clinton transmitted his FY 2001 Budget Proposals to Congress on February 7, 2000. Click here to view an interactive pdf version of the budget.
Highlights
In FY2001, the President will emphasize investments in research as a major component of his budget. In his FY2001 budget, the President proposes a new Science and Technology Initiative that seeks to build on his 21st Century Research Fund for America, which he included in the FY2000 budget. As a major tenet of this new initiative, the budget seeks to create a more balanced research portfolio between biomedical research and research in the other sciences. Furthermore, the budget would seek to fund university-based research at $17.831 billion in FY2001, an increase of $1.284 billion, or 8 percent, over the FY2000 level.
As a part of this new emphasis on research, the Administration will seek to push a number of new multi-agency research initiatives, including the Information Technology Research Initiative and the National Nanotechnology Initiative.
Education
In education, the President’s FY2001 budget proposes to increase the maximum Pell grant award by $200 to $3,500. The overall appropriations for Pell grants would be increased by $717 million over the FY2000 level.
The Supplemental Education Opportunity Grant (SEOG) program would be funded at $691 million, an increase of $30.0 million, or a 4.8-percent increase, over the FY2000 level.
The Administration proposes to fund the federal work-study program at $1.011 billion, an increase of $77 million, or an 8.2-percent increase, over the FY2000 level.
Perkins capital contributions would be level-funded at $100 million. The FY2001 budget proposes to increase the funding for Perkins loan cancellations to $60 million, an increase of $30 million.
The Leveraging Educational Assistance Partnership (LEAP) program would be level-funded at $40 million.
Under this budget, TRIO programs would be funded at $725 million. This is an increase of $80 million, or 12.4 percent, over the FY2000 level. The GEAR UP program would be funded at $325 million, an increase of $125 million.
In FY2000, the Javits Program received $10 million for fellowships for academic year 2000-2001 and $10 million for fellowships for academic year 2001-2001. The FY2001 seeks $10 million for fellowships in academic year 2002-2003.
In addition, the FY 2001 budget contains a number of new higher education tax incentives, including the College Opportunity Tax Cut. Under the new proposal, families would be able to choose between taking a tax deduction or claiming a 28-percent tax credit for tuition and fees to pay for postsecondary education.
The initiative proposes to cover up to $5,000 of education expenses in 2001 and 2002, and up to $10,000 starting in 2003. When fully phased in, the proposal would give families tax cuts up to $2,800. The cut would phase out at incomes between $50,000 and $60,000 for individuals and between $100,00 and $120,000 for joint filers under the current Lifetime Learning Tax Credit.
The budget also includes a provision that would reinstate the exclusion of employer provided education benefits, also known popularly as "Section 127," for graduate education. The proposal would allow workers to exclude from their taxable income up to $5,250 of employer-provided education benefits for graduate education.
Furthermore, the budget would eliminate the 60-month limit on student loan-interest deduction.
National Science Foundation
In this budget, the President proposes a $675 million increase for the National Science Foundation. This represents a 17-percent increase. Under this proposal, NSF would be funded at $4.5 billion for FY2001.
In FY2001, in addition to supporting its core activities, the NSF will seek to highlight four major initiatives. First, NSF will serve as the lead agency for the multi-agency initiative on information technology (IT) research. The Administration will seek $740 million for IT research and development at NSF. This represents an increase of 43 percent.
Second, NSF, along with other agencies, will invest heavily in nanoscale technology through the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI). The budget seeks $217 million, an increase of $120 million, or 124 percent, for the NSF portion of this initiative.
The National Science Foundation will also promote the Biocomplexity in the Environment (BE) Initiative. Furthermore, NSF will seek to create Centers for Teaching and Learning as the cornerstone of the 21st Century Workforce Initiative.
National Institutes of Health
For the NIH, the President is proposing a budget of $18.813 billion, a $1.0 billion increase, or 5.6 percent.
Of the $18.813 billion for FY2001, $10.713 billion, or 56.9 percent, would be allocated to research project grants.
During FY2001, the NIH will seek to promote four areas with special emphasis. The first area that will be highlighted is genetic medicine. Second, NIH will focus more closely on clinical research. Third, NIH will seek ways to foster more interdisciplinary research. Furthermore, NIH will continue in its efforts to eliminate health disparities between majority and minority populations.
Agriculture
Overall the President's FY 2001 recommendation represents a 2.3% increase in the CSREES budget over FY 2000. This is an overall increase of $22,1999,000. Included in the total is mandatory funding of $120,000,000 for the Initiative for Future Agriculture and Food Systems (Sec.401), at least $20,000,000, for the Fund for Rural America, and an increase from $39,541,000 to $76,194,000 in the Integrated Activities account (Sec. 406). Most of the additional funds included in the Integrated Activities account came from other areas of the budget (e.g. Special Research Grants) but some new moneys were added to the account. Included is $1,000.000 for International Science and Education grants and $4,000,000 for the Small Farms Inititative. The National Research Initiative is recommended at $150,000,000. There were also substantial increases in several programs in Higher Education.
Base Program funds were recommended at the same level as last year. This is the first time in several years that these funds haven't been recommended for cuts.
Defense
In the overall FY2001 Pentagon budget, basic research (6.1) is funded at $1.217 billion, an increase of $56 million, or 4.8 percent. Applied research (6.2) would be funded at $3.144 billion, a decrease of $266 million, or 7.8 percent.
Army 6.1 research would be funded at $201 million, a decrease of $3.0 million, or 1.5 percent, from the FY2000 level. Army 62 research would be funded at $602.5 million, a decrease of $185.4 million, or 23.4 percent.
Navy 6.1 research would be funded at $397.5 million, an increase of $23.2 million, or 6.2 percent. Navy 6.2 research would be funded at $527.1 million, a decrease of $95.3 million, or 15.3 percent.
Air Force 6.1 would be reduced by $7.7 million, or 3.6 percent, to $206.1 million. Air Force 6.2 would be reduced by $6.5 million, or 1.1 percent, to $590.3 million for FY2001.
Defense-wide 6.1 would be funded at $412.8 million, an increase of $44.4 million, or 12 percent. Defense-wide 6.2 would be funded at $1.424 billion, an increase of $24.1 million, or 1.7 percent.
Energy
At the Department of Energy, the FY2001 budget proposes to invest $7.6 billion in research and development, an increase of 8 percent. More specifically, the budget provides $3.15 billion, a 13-percent increase, over FY2000 for research programs in physics, chemistry, biology, materials, environmental, and computer sciences.
The budget includes a $337 million increase in the Science account. It also includes $281 million for Spallation Neutron Source as well as $234 million for fusion research and $70 million for the Large Hadron Collider.
Like many other agencies, DOE will also feature the IT Research Initiative in FY 2001.
NASA
The President’s budget would fund NASA at $14.035 billion for FY2001, an increase of $434.5 million.
Space Science would be funded at $2.4 billion, an increase of $210 million. Life and Microgravity Sciences would be funded at $302.4 million, an increase of $27.7 million. Earth Science would be funded at $1.405 billion, a decrease of $37.6 million. Aero-space Technology would be funded at $1.193 billion, an increase of $68.1 million.
Additional Budget Information
The federal budget is available on the world-wide web at the following URL:
http://w3.access.gpo.gov/usbudget/ <http://w3.access.gpo.gov/usbudget/> .
Additional details on the budget will be provided when they become available.