When President Bush sent his fiscal year 2003 budget proposal to Capitol Hill last February, House Science Committee Chairman Sherwood Boehlert (R‐N.Y.) noted the 17&percent; increase proposed for the National Institutes of Health and the 5&percent; offering for NSF and wasn't happy. Describing the NSF funding proposal as “anemic,” Boehlert observed that “just the increase in the NIH budget is larger than the research budget of NSF.”