Here are the proposed cuts. (This is house.gov, not some left or right-leaning blog.) Some I'm okay with. The joke is refusing to look at the military budget, or the major entitlement programs. As others have noted, they are looking within only 16% of the total budget. You all know my apolitical bias toward science, but here are ones I think are incredibly stupid: · Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy -$899M · Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability -$49M · Nuclear Energy -$169M · Fossil Energy Research -$31M · Clean Coal Technology -$18M · Office of Science -$1.1B · National Institute of Standards and Technology -$186M · NOAA -$336M · NASA -$379M · CDC -$755M · NIH -$1B · NSF -$139M Do they hate science just because Obama speaks in favor of science? Those cuts to NIH, NSF, and NIST (the more pure scientific research agencies in the nation) are pretty dramatic. And the CDC budget? Really? Do people think that money can protect them from pandemics? Good luck with that. I could go on about FDA cuts as well.
Do any of those departments have rules and regs that line the top .5% pockets? If not...there you go.
I don't see a need to even bother looking at it given this caveat, as it basically makes the entire exercise a combination of pointless and inept.
If these guys were doctors, it would be scary. Patient: I'd like to do some weight-loss surgery. I want to lose 50 lbs. Doctor: Sure no problem. We can remove the brain, heart, and kidneys. That's only 20 lbs but it's better than zero.
Strangely enough, Republican controlled Washington has historically been more kind to the sciences than Dems. But if Obama said he likes science, I wouldn't be surprised if Republicans would vote to ban it.
I believe the feeling is more that it is not the government's job to generate progress in these fields. It is the private sectors job. If you define the governments roll as protecting the citizens' rights from all threats foreign in domestic then these things should not be part of the government. Military advancements would be.
I see a long fruitless discussion with the toolbag who registered tallanvor occurring in this thread. My vision goes something like this: A patient, genteel attempt at rational discourse, by one of the gentler souls like rocketjudoka or JuanValdez....followed by deliberately idiotic responses, then andymoon jumps into the fray with lengthy point by point refutations, eventually degenerating into a few insults as symbolic of pent-up frustration. One can only expect so much of the University of Arizona's only undergraduate with a PhD in political science. Fun will be had by all. By penalty of law.
Yeah, this is true. Bush II was not bad for NSF and NIST, in particular. A bit of a mixed bag for NIH, but it had expanded greatly during Clinton's terms. In the long history of incredibly worthwhile federal funding of science, including really the last century of so, giving us the interwebs et multi alia, Repubs have not been enemies. I know it's just the house, but it's a disappointing start. To suck so vigorously on the defense industry's... missile... from the get go... just shameless. And sadly good prognostication, Sam. I for one am not replying to the idiocy, already on display, but you're probably right about the future of this thread.
If the Dems are too afraid to offer alternative cuts or propose tax hikes, this is the only game in town. Complaining is not an alternative solution. Something has to get cut, we have no money. I love all these cuts by the way, but it's not nearly enough. If you want research, donate to a research institution or buy stock in a company doing research you like. Keep my tax dollars out of it.
This isn't really a party thing for me, but I focused on the GOP proposal since they control the house. (1) agree completely. Why can't we talk about the truly huge parts of the budget. sec. of defense thinks we should cut it. tea party thinks we should cut it. I agree. Why try to balance the enormous budget by just concentrating on the tiny stuff? Someone mentioned the analogy of removing a critical organ to lose weight, while not talking about your beer gut. Good analogy to me. Everything should be on the table. (2) I'm sorry, I think that's a false picture. R&D spending in the corporate sector is way down (sad to say, for the nation.) The great advances that led to what was once American superiority in computing and biotechnology: overwhelmingly due to government funding, government-supported small business, and start-ups nucleating from federally-funded university research programs. Even if you think I'm only 25% right, why do we gut something innovative that makes America competitive, if it's less than 1% of the savings we need to generate? Meanwhile we fund military at about 100x anyone else. What's the next engine for the economy? Canned ham? Old tech SUVs? Woolen mills? Seriously, it's probably going to involve a lot of tech, and new tech is what sells, right? Maybe you think technology hasn't influenced our economy, but then we just agree to disagree. When we didn't support research from the federal level, we were distant cousins to Germany in terms of science and technology. WWII lit a bit of a fire under our asses, in that respect. I guess we could wait for the next great war?
