President Biden Releases Fiscal Year 2024 Budget Proposal: What’s In it for the Population Sciences?

On March 9, the Biden Administration began releasing details of its Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 budget request to Congress. The President’s budget is a symbolic document used to communicate the Administration’s spending and policy priorities. The budget identifies several cross-government priorities for the President, including: cutting the cancer death rate by at least 50 percent over the next 25 years; preparing for and preventing future pandemics; combating climate change; advancing national security and technological competitiveness; broadening participation in science and applying science to achieve equity; and, investing in STEM education and workforce.

Now that the Administration has proposed its budget, Congress will dispose of the details, holding hearings over the next few months to consider the President’s request and draft 12 appropriations bills outlining funding recommendations for all federal agencies. The new leaders of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees, Representative Kay Granger (R-TX), Representative Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), and Senator Susan Collins (R-ME), respectively, have stated their intention to bring all bills to the House and Senate floors and pass them before the current fiscal year expires on September 30, 2023. If they are successful, it will be first time since 1997 that Congress has passed all appropriations bills on time.

In the U.S. House of Representatives, a vocal minority of members are urging Congress to reverse discretionary spending, which includes all federal agencies that directly and indirectly support the population sciences, back to FY 2022 levels. The pressure to accommodate these members views threatens to not only disrupt the FY 2024 appropriations process, but also to jeopardize efforts to increase funding for accounts important to the population research community, including the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, Census Bureau, and other federal statistical agencies. PAA and the Association of Population Centers (APC) are working independently and as members of numerous coalitions in Washington DC to urge Congress to provide robust funding for federal agencies that support population research and training activities.

On March 14, PAA sponsored its annual Advocacy Day in which an invited delegation of population scientists met with congressional offices and committees to share examples of federally funded population research activities and advances and urge support for funding key agencies in FY 2024. The below table summarizes funding recommendations that PAA and APC have endorsed and were communicated by the Advocacy Day delegates. More information about PAA and APC’s FY 2024 funding priorities is available here.

The PAA/APC Government and Public Affairs Committee will keep members apprised of developments as the FY 2024 appropriations process unfolds.

 

Agency President’s Request PAA/APC Recommendation
National Institutes of Health
$48.5 billion
$50.9 billion
National Science Foundation $11.3 billion $11.9 billion
National Center for Health Statistics $189.5 million $215 million
Institute of Education Sciences $870.9 million $900 million
Census Bureau $1.6 billion $2 billion
Bureau of Labor Statistics $758.4 million $868.5 million
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality $447.5 million $500 million
Bureau of Justice Statistics $78 million $60 million
National Institute of Justice $63 million $50 million

Discover more from Association of Population Centers

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading