The computer lust of some errant National Science Foundation employees has put the agency squarely in the cross hairs, and we do mean cross, of Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley.

Grassley, the ranking GOP member of the Senate Finance Committee, has proposed pulling the plug on $3 billion in stimulus package funding for the foundation while he mounts an investigation of NSF staff members' use of foundation computers to surf the Internet for pornography.

The cuts to the stimulus package are still a bit in flux as the debate rages on in Washington, but it looks like a final agreement should come quickly.

Grassley has already demanded all documents relating to foundation's investigation into inappropriate use of its computer network.

Go right ahead, senator, investigate away. We agree that porn-surfing should not be allowed on government computers - or company ones, either.

But it seems to us that a decision on funding the NSF - which is the funnel for funding about 20 percent of all federally supported basic research at colleges and universities across the country - should be made on the merits of the programs they would enhance and the economic impact they would generate, and not on a pornographic pique.

We would urge Sen. Grassley to put a little perspective on this situation.

For starters, the porn-surfing happened months ago, but only came to light in September in a semiannual report from the foundation. The foundation's inspector general investigated and reportedly found evidence of downloading sexually explicit or inappropriate images in a check of staff and network computers. One "senior staff member," according to news reports, spent as much as 20 percent of his time during a two-year period at sex sites and chat rooms which cost the foundation - and taxpayers - an estimated $58,000. That is, indeed, outrageous and should not be tolerated.

And the foundation didn't tolerate it. NSF fired at least three staffers over the online escapades, parceled out suspensions to two others and verbally reprimanded another. It also added new filters to its computer systems and said it would "focus in particular on the enforcement of the foundation's long-standing policy prohibiting the use of its IT systems to access sexually explicit, gambling and other inappropriate Web sites."

Grassley can and should satisfy himself that the NSF's investigation and discipline was appropriate.

But he should also acknowledge that this involved seven of NSF's 1,500 employees. That's less than a half of one percent of staff, yet Grassley called the whole "culture" of the foundation into question.

In other editorials, we have raised objections to the massive pork-barrel spending in the stimulus package - and to spending that will not have an immediate impact on the economy or serve to jump-start it. We continue to believe it is incredibly bloated and will likely be ineffective.

That said, NSF can at least make the case that federal dollars that flow to it for research can make - and have made an impact on the nation's economy.

One of the more compelling arguments we have seen was made in a commentary this week in The Houston Chronicle by John Miller, a professor of physics and research committee chair of the Texas Center for Superconductivity at the University of Houston.

Miller argued that studies have shown that research dollars have an economic multiplier of $2.50 for each dollar invested in NSF. Even more compellingly, he wrote, "Perhaps most importantly, the human innovation supported by research and development is the only way to sustain long-term growth and improve our quality of life in a world with limited natural resources, an aging baby-boom generation, stresses on the global climate and increased competition from abroad. Economists estimate that technological innovation has engendered 60 percent to 80 percent of America's economic growth over the past 50 years."

One of those innovations, Miller wrote, came after a $1 million NSF grant to Stanford University for a digital library initiative. It gave rise to Google.

For our money - and yes, it is our money - that's the kind of yardstick Congress should be using to gauge the final version of the stimulus package. That decision certainly shouldn't be made because an Iowa senator wants to take a whipping stick to a foundation because it had a handful of sex-surfing miscreants.