As Washington settles in for what is sure to be a lively debate over President Obama’s proposed $3.8 trillion budget, much of the discussion will turn on jobs and the economy. But the budget also contains numerous IT provisions to advance the administration’s tech agenda.
Datamation pours through the budget and takes a look at the administration’s proposals to advance R&D, cybersecurity and cloud computing.
As administration officials begin making the rounds today on Capitol Hill pitching President Obama’s $3.8 trillion budget, the focus is on creating jobs and reviving the battered economy, but scattered throughout the 670 pages of fiscal expenditures and analysis are several key IT initiatives that aim to advance the ambitious White House technology agenda.
The proposed 2011 budget places a strong emphasis on research and development, with funding for experimental projects at various federal agencies seeking to develop novel technologies in areas like clean energy, nanotechnology and medicine.
In total, the budget proposes $61.6 billion for federal civilian R&D ($147.7 billion overall), a down payment on Obama’s long-term goal of growing federal research expenditures to 3 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP).
Obama proposed $712 million for the National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST), a research arm of the Department of Commerce, to focus on energy technology, biomanufacturing and cybersecurity.
For NIST, the proposed budget would amount to a 34 percent increase over the $533 million disbursement in the 2010 budget, and would build on the $240 million set aside for NIST’s research activities in the stimulus bill, which also allocated an additional $180 million for the construction of new facilities.
