FIGURE R&D-10 Trends in federal research by field, FY 1970-FY 2004, in obligations of billions of constant FY 2004 dollars.

SOURCE: American Association for the Advancement of Science. Chart: Trends in Federal Research by Discipline: FY 1970-2004. Washington, DC: American Association for the Advancement of Science, February 2005. Available at: http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd/discip04.pdf.

• Return federal R&D funding to at least 1% of the US GDP.²¹

• Minimize earmarks in science and technology funding because these types of research requests diminish the funding available for competitive merit-reviewed research.²²

• Provide a tax credit to corporations that fund basic research in science and technology at our nation’s universities.

• Make the R&D tax credit permanent to promote private support of R&D, as requested by the Administration in the FY 2006 budget proposal.

Innovation has become more important than capital or labor in boosting economic productivity, but the course and effects of innovation are much harder to predict and understand. New technologies can spread rap-