WASHINGTON. — Washington -- For a quick course in wacky policy-making, look at George Bush's latest plan for divvying up the U.S. government's bountiful funds for research and development.
With the Cold War ended, the threats now facing this country are economic rather than military. But the president proposes to give the Pentagon 60 percent of the $76 billion budgeted for R&D next year. That's the same share that defense received last year, before the ex-Soviet military establishment went into a catatonic state.
The only rationale offered is that military research must thrive to prevent ''technological surprise.'' Where this might come from is not stated, nor is there an explanation for raising military R&D even above the levels of the worst in Soviet-American animosities.
Star Wars is budgeted for $5.4 billion for next year. After several years of malign neglect by the White House, a mere $68 million is now proposed for the Commerce Department's Advanced Technology Program, designed to promote R&D collaboration among small firms. When applications were invited for this program last year, industry responded with 249 proposals, scores of them highly rated.
But funds were so scarce that only 11 were accepted. Even with the proposed budget boost -- $17 million above last year's figure -- the outcome for many promising research proposals will be rejection for lack of money.
From South Korea to France, the governments of our industrial competitors are pumping money into industrial research and encouraging private firms to do the same. But the Bush administration remains ideologically adrift on the government's proper role in the marketplace.
Pressed by the recession and demands for profits, American industrial management is increasingly timid about taking on long-term research projects, which by definition are gambles. Aerospace, rapidly sinking into a depression as military business declines, shows little confidence about converting from rockets and military aircraft to civilian products.
In a candid acknowledgment of the industry's plight, Don Fuqua, the president of the Aerospace Industries Association, recently warned that ''the industry has learned the hard way the lesson that high-tech labor and facilities are not readily adaptable to low-tech consumer products. The history of our industry is replete with examples of failed attempts to do so,'' he said.
