The transparency of this administration as well as the previous few is exemplary. For the first time, all of the visitors that step into the White House are recorded on the White House Website.
Recently, the new budget for the upcoming Fiscal Year was published. Needless to say, one needs a degree in Economics to make sense of the daunting number of figures posted as debits and credits. I do think it interesting to go through the document and read the Highlights before each of the Department Budgets. I have included the Highlights for Energy, Education, and Defense. As one looks through these figures, compare the hundreds of billions of dollars that the Department of Defense is allocated to the tens of billions that Energy and Education receive. It's not hard to understand why such a large deficit is being accrued with two wars going on simultaneously.
Funding Highlights for Department of Energy:
• Supports high-risk, high-payoff transformational research and development projects with $300 million for the recently established Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy (ARPA-E).
• Supports and encourages the early commercial deployment of innovative energy technologies with an additional $36 billion in guaranteed loan volume authority for advanced nuclear power plants and an additional $500 million in credit subsidy to support $3 to $5 billion in loan guarantees for innovative energy efficiency and renewable energy projects.
• Provides a 4.6 percent, or $226 million, increase in funding at the Office of Science for basic research and world-leading laboratories to support transformational scientific discoveries and accelerate solutions to our Nation’s most pressing challenges.
• Invests $2.3 billion in applied energy research and development to position the United States as the world leader in energy technology that will address climate change, develop new industries, and create new jobs.
Funding Highlights for Department of Defense:
• Provides $548.9 billion for the Department of Defense base budget in 2011, a 3.4 percent increase over the 2010 enacted level.
• Includes $33.0 billion for a 2010 supplemental request and $159.3 billion for 2011 to support ongoing overseas contingency operations, including funds to execute the President’s new strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
• Maintains ready forces and continues efforts to rebalance military forces to focus more on today’s wars, and provides capabilities to deter or if necessary engage in future conflicts.
• Continues strong support for our men and women in uniform through a robust benefits package including pay increases that keep pace with the private sector.
• Supports access to medical care to the more than 9.5 million beneficiaries: active military members and their families, military retirees and their families, dependent survivors, and eligible Reserve Component members and families.
• Supports wounded warrior transition units and centers of excellence in vision, hearing, traumatic brain injury, and other areas to continuously improve the care provided to wounded, ill, and injured servicemembers.
• Continues to reform defense acquisition, reducing its use of high-risk contracts related to time-and-materials and labor-hours by 17 percent through the end of 2011, while modernizing key weapons systems to provide our troops with the best technology to meet battlefield needs, and eliminating or reconfiguring lower-priority acquisitions.
• Prioritizes resources by ending or reducing several programs, including the C-17 aircraft, the Joint Strike Fighter Alternate Engine program, the Third Generation Infrared Surveillance program, and the Net-Enabled Command Capability program.
• Supports a reconfigured ballistic missile defense strategy, in line with the President’s policy, to better address current threats.
• Accelerates the transition to a low-carbon economy through support of development and deployment of clean energy technologies such as solar, biomass, geothermal, wind, nuclear, and low-carbon emission coal power.
• Reduces security risks through major increases in funding for the detection, elimination, and securing of nuclear material and radiological sources worldwide and the maintenance of a safe, secure, and effective nuclear weapons stockpile.
• Continues the Nation’s efforts to reduce environmental risks and safely manage nuclear materials.
Funding Highlights for Department of Education:
• Provides a $3 billion increase in K-12 education programs, plus up to $1 billion in additional funding if Congress successfully completes a fundamental overhaul of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). Together, these measures would represent the largest funding increase for ESEA programs ever requested.
• Supports needed reforms of Federal K-12 programs to promote college- and career- readiness, enhance teacher and principal effectiveness, deliver a rigorous and complete education, improve educational options, and prepare our children for the jobs of the future.
• Provides $1.35 billion to expand Race to the Top for school districts as well as States to carry out systemic reform, and $500 million to continue the Investing in Innovation program to test, validate, and scales up effective approaches to student learning.
• Increases the number, and improves the distribution of, effective teachers and principals, by investing $950 million in competitive grants to States and school districts that build comprehensive systems to recruit, prepare, retain, and reward effective teachers and principals.
• Invests $210 million in Promise Neighborhoods, an initiative that integrates school reform with strong family supports and effective community services across an entire neighborhood, so that youth successfully complete high school and continue on to college.
• Expands educational options and increases access to high-quality schools by investing $490 million to grow effective charter schools and other effective, autonomous public schools that achieve results, develop new approaches, and give parents more choices.
• Consolidates 38 K-12 programs into 11 new programs that emphasize competitive funding, accountability for outcomes and flexibility in approaches, and use of evidence to get results.
• Supports the next generation of scientists and engineers by helping States develop and implement math and science instructional practices that are aligned to rigorous college- and career-ready standards and by supporting districts and nonprofit organizations that develop, implement, and evaluate promising and effective programs.
• Increases aid for needy students, reforms Federal student aid programs, and simplifies the financial aid application process.
• Funds new reforms across the Nation’s early learning programs for children birth through age five, so they’re prepared to enter kindergarten ready for success.
• Creates a Workforce Innovation Partnership with the Department of Labor to test and validate effective strategies to improve services under the Workforce Investment Act.
Note: All of the information above is taken directly from the Budget and the Source for all above-stated information is Budget of the United States Government
Sunday, February 7, 2010
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