Huge cuts in Trump's 'skinny budget' would put science on starvation diet
The White House budget blueprint has rocked the US science community, targeting key research programmes for steep cuts and elimination
US science organisations and academic research groups are warning that President Trump’s preliminary budget blueprint for 2018 will cripple American innovation and economic growth. The so-called ‘skinny budget’ would boost defence spending by $54 billion (£44 billion), by making significant cuts to non-defence programmes, including scientific research. Trump has proposed cutting the National Institutes of Health (NIH) by 20%, a similar cut for the Department of Energy’s Office of Science and cuts of 50% to the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) research arm known as the Office of Research and Development.