Based on the analysis of the allocation data of the U.S. federal funding, the article studied the allocation and management mode of the U.S. federal funding, and then specifically introduced competitive allocation methods and processes of NSF’s federal funding. The results shows that, first, the allocation and management of U.S. federal funding present a twice allocation feature on the whole, which was top-down: all government departments obtained their executable research budget through noncompetitive way of budget management was the initial allocation stage; national laboratory, FFRDCs, colleges and universities and other research institutions apply research funding for departments through competitive or noncompetitive way was secondary allocation stage. Second, NSF allocated its research funding through a competitive way of project officer independent decision-making with the help of value appraisal, which greatly improved the efficiency and fairness of funds allocation. Finally, the article put forward some suggestions for china’s government funding allocation.