1. How much money does President Obama want to spend in the first year to launch the BRAIN program?

2. What does the President say is the purpose of BRAIN?

3. What are the problems associated with being able to successfully map the brain?

4. For the BRAIN program, what are:

1. the milestones researchers expect to produce?
2. the timetable for achieving this goal?
3. the total cost of successfully meeting the goal?

5. Sequestration (the automatic cuts in the federal budget) took effect recently, intended to do something about the national debt, which a month ago was $16.5 trillion and growing. Congress and the president were supposed to come up with cuts of at least $1.2 trillion over the next 10 years. (NOTE: the national debt equals the amount of money the government spends above the amount of taxes it collects)

a) Do you support the launch of a program that will cost taxpayers $100 million the first year alone if a potential outcome is to improve the treatment of some disorders/diseases? Explain your answer.

b) Where should the government get the money to pay for BRAIN? Explain your answer(s).

• cut government funding from another program
• raise taxes
• look to private industry to conduct this research
• hold a fund-raising drive to raise the needed funds
• from President Obama's Organizing for Action non-profit group (which he created when he restructured his reelection campaign into a tax-exempt non-profit organization - something no other president has done).

6. How do Republicans in Congress view President Obama's proposal to spend $100 million on brain map research, according to spokesman Michael Steele?

7. Read the "Background" below the questions about the National Institutes of Health.

a)  How much does the federal government give the NIH each year?

b) Do you think it is part of the federal government's job to fund medical research? Explain your answer.

c) If a medical research project had the potential of finding a treatment or cure for a disease(s), do you think private companies would be able to secure private funding to conduct the research? Explain your answer.