Recent news
February 2011
President Obama releases budget proposal
February 16, 2011 -- President Obama on Monday released his fiscal year (FY) 2012 budget proposal, which aims to reduce spending in certain areas while increasing resources in areas like research that have the potential for long-term payoffs in economic growth. Obama’s FY 2012 budget would total $3.7 billion and would reduce the total projected deficits over the next decade by $1.1 trillion. The request would provide $148 billion for research and development overall, while targeting resources to those areas most likely to contribute to the creation of technologies that can spur job creation and business activity. In “an increasingly competitive world in which jobs and businesses are mobile, we also have a responsibility to invest in those things that are absolutely critical to preparing our people and our nation for the economic competition of our time. … We do this by encouraging American innovation and investing in research and development,” Obama said when releasing his budget request.
Obama’s budget proposes $47 billion for the Department of State and the US Agency for International Development, a one percent increase from 2010 enacted funding levels. It would invest $9.8 billion in the Global Health Initiative. In addition, the proposal increases funding for intramural and extramural HIV/AIDS-related research supported by the NIH by $74 million from the 2010 enacted level, for a total of nearly $3.2 billion in 2012.
Obama’s budget would provide $79.9 billion to support the Department of Health and Human Services, which is slightly above the FY 2010 funding level. It would allocate $32 billion in funding for biomedical research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The proposal would also provide $765 million for the development of next generation medical countermeasures against chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear threats. Additionally, $655 million would be provided to ensure the availability of medical countermeasures from the Strategic National Stockpile during a public health emergency. In addition, the proposal would provide $4.4 billion in total program resources for the Food and Drug Administration.
- New York Times
- Washington Post
- Nature News
- Fact sheets from the White House Office of Management and Budget on President Obama’s budget proposal
- Global Health Council preliminary analysis of the global health funding levels in the president’s budget request (278 KB PDF)
