The White House has released Obama’s proposed budget. The final budget won’t look exactly like this one, but it’s another one of those “hey look, we have a new president with a new vision” moments. On the economic front, as Robert Reich explains, the tax structure is going to get a little bit more Robin Hood-y. You can take a look at the whole thing here in a cool in-line document reader. DOI starts on page 83 of the reader (77 of the document). Technically, the budget for ‘09 is about $400 million less than ‘08 (about a 3% cut) and ‘10 is projected to be $300 million more than ‘08, but neither of those include the ~$3 billion in the stimulus.

NSF is on page 111 of the reader (105 of the document… seriously, PDFs do this, too. Why can’t the document page number be embedded in the document reader?). In this case, we’re getting a bump! An extra $800 million this year (16% increase) and another $100 million next, plus $3 billion from the stimulus. I love the sound of this: “Ensuring America’s economic competitiveness requires that we develop the future scientific and technical workforce for our universities, national labs, and companies. To help accomplish these goals, the Budget provides substantial increases for NSF’s prestigious Graduate Research Fellowship.” Emphasis mine. So either NSF GR Fellows are about to make a lot more money, or it’s about to get a bit less prestigious. For my sake, let’s hope it’s the latter.