I can't believe I missed this. I was reading the Scientific Activist and a saw that an article was published last week in Science indicating a striking decrease in RO1 funding over the last few years. What is shocking isn't that RO1s are successful in acquiring funding, but how rapidly the rate of funding RO1s has dropped.

Fate of unamended (unsolicited) R01 research grant applications
Fiscal year	Number submitted	Number awarded	Total $ awarded (millions)	Success rate (%)
Type-1 grants: new submissions
1999	8957	1761	456	19.7
2000	8626	1736	503	20.1
2001	8284	1590	501	19.2
2002	8560	1556	510	18.2
2003	9605	1477	493	15.4
2004	10624	1288	438	12.1
2005	10605	970	351	9.1
Type-2 grants: continuation (renewal) submissions
1999	3214	1772	554	55.1
2000	3233	1708	563	52.8
2001	3100	1637	583	52.8
2002	3153	1555	559	49.3
2003	3767	1697	627	45.0
2004	3773	1530	580	40.6
2005	3896	1262	496	32.4

One should fear for any country that fails to maintain its investment in R&D. I can only hope when it comes time to try to get my first RO1 this situation will have reversed itself (in other words, we will have elected competent leadership).