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∂AIL Forum↓%2IEEE Spectrum%1↓345 East 47th Street
↓New York, N.Y. 10017∞

Sirs:

	Bruno Weinschel's proposal (%2Spectrum%1, February 1980)
for a National Engineering
Foundation has many merits, but remember how long it took
for the budget of the National Science Foundation to reach a
substantial level and how difficult it is today to get a billion
dollars a year for a new purpose in competition with the established
interests.

	Bell Telephone Laboratories is funded by
a percentage "tax" on the gross receipts of the A.T.&T. operating
companies, and the Electric Power Research Institute gets
a percentage of the gross receipts of the participating utilities.
Each has a budget much larger than one can imagine Congress allocating
to that industry through a National Engineering Foundation.

	How about financing National Engineering Foundations by
"taxing" the gross receipts of the industries covered?  However,
it should be a semi-governmental agency, and most of its receipts
should be controlled by boards representing the
specific industries taxed.  Thus construction industry research
and electronics industry research
would be controlled by board members from those industries.  Part of
the money should go to fund research that would benefit technology
generally.

	It could also be done voluntarily, as the
example of the Electric Power Research Institute shows, but since
there seems to be no movement in that direction, some Government
action might be called for.  The Government might even say that if
an industry will tax itself, it would stay out.  The IEEE could take
the lead in organizing an Electronics Industry Research Institute.  One
percent of electronics industry receipts is more than electronics is
likely to get from the National Engineering Foundation.

.sgn