Richard Freeman and John Van Reenen ("Be Careful What You Wish For: A Cautionary Tale about Budget Doubling," Issues, Fall 2008) provided a thought-provoking analysis of the budget doubling for the National Institutes of Health (NIH). They raised an important point that we must view future research funding increases in terms of their impact on increasing educational opportunities and financial support for young researchers. However, the NIH doubling was needed because chronic underinvestment in scientific R&D created a situation in which many of our federal scientific agencies were in need of significant short-term increases in funding. We must learn to avoid the complacency that led to the current funding deficiencies. Unfortunately, the flat-funding of NIH since the doubling ended has effectively caused their budget to decline by 13% due to inflation, creating a whipsaw effect after a decade of growth. Research policy is long-term, and we must commit to a sustainable funding model for federal science agencies.
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机译：理查德·弗里曼（Richard Freeman）和约翰·范·雷恩（John Van Reenen）（“小心谨慎：关于预算翻倍的警示性故事”，《问题》，2008年秋季）对美国国立卫生研究院（NIH）的预算翻倍进行了令人深思的分析。他们提出了一个重要的观点，即我们必须从增加对年轻研究者的教育机会和财政支持的影响方面来看待未来研究经费的增加。但是，NIH需要加倍，因为对科学研发的长期投资不足造成了这样一种情况，即我们的许多联邦科学机构都需要短期大量增加资金。我们必须学会避免导致当前资金不足的自满情绪。不幸的是，自从翻倍结束以来，NIH的固定资金投入有效地使他们的预算由于通货膨胀而下降了13％，在十年的增长之后产生了鞭打效应。研究政策是长期的，我们必须致力于为联邦科学机构提供可持续的资助模式。
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