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Taxing Sci-Fi Products to Fund NASA?
LordNimon writes "According to an article in the Huntsville (AL) Times, Michael Williams, a Republican candidate for Congress, is proposing a 1% tax on any science fiction- or space-related products (e.g. books, toys, and games) and using that money to fund NASA. At first I thought this guy was crazy, considering the administrative nightmare of determining which products should be taxed. But then I realized something - this tax would make those who are most interested in space the primary source of space development funding. Instead of making everyone pay for NASA, those who care most about it also fund it the most. Maybe if the guy didn't work in a supermarket, he'd be taken more seriously."
um... you got it wrong. Public transportation costs should be pushed to people who buy cars/gasoline because cars are bad for society (e.g. polution) and public transportation is very good for everyone. In a society with good public transportation system cars becomes more of a luxury (which it should be) and should be taxed.
I passed the Turing test.
I agree. I always thought it would be cool to set up something like movie theaters charging a buck extra and kicking it out to NASA when showing a flick like Apollo 13, Star Wars, ET... I would do that, heck a few bucks that way would make for more scifi/sci history flicks at the box office. $0.25 would be cool on the rentals of this genre too.
Only problem with this kind of thing is that once it gets started we'll be seeing a condom tax for sex flicks, needy kids tax for disney flicks, church reparations for demonic flicks, stoner tax on jay and silent bob flicks for drug rehab programs... where do you draw the line?
Prospecting Stinks. Stop Wasting Time on Cold Calling.
Simple simile: taxing sci-fi products to promote the space industry is like taxing Barbie products to promote the fashion industry. This, folks, is socialism at its finest.
That's a great idea - we should only tax the people who care about NASA for NASA!!
And while we're at it, we'll pay for police protection with a tax on handguns, alarms and mace (after all, those are the people interested in protection); fire protection with a tax on smoke alarms and extinguishers; cleaning up the environment by taxing granola and birkenstocks; and welfare by taxing Volvos!
Aside from certain use fees and excise taxes where consumption is generally related to some gov't service (e.g., gasoline consumption is generally related to highway use), the gov't taxes us generally and then allocates the monies according to priorities.
I don't see a decent rationale for why scifi consumers should fund NASA when the population at large reaps the benefits of the scientific and techological discoveries. It's not just the kids with Jar-Jar dolls who drink Tang...
There is no one who utilizes all functions of the government. That's the idea. We all pay for everything, and then use these things disproportionately. If we broke the system down into things along the lines of "pay for what you use," we would have an administrative nightmare.
There is also a great deal of overlap within government projects. For example, much NASA research would be applied to a missile shield, but many science aficionados are strictly against such a project. If you operate under the idea that we should pay only for what we support, then I most certainly will not pay for a shield, which thus means not paying for NASA in the first place.
~Kumomancer
Equating an interest in SF with an interest in *FUNDING the space program* is at best specious, and since the article is based on a presumably serious candidate's notions, I have a hard time taking it as "funny".
Let's turn it around: Geeky stuff should be taxed 1% per year and the funds thus collected should be paid to GeekPAC. Lessee, what to tax.. computers and components, software (let's tax free software by the byte) and interent access all fall under "geeky stuff".
Oh, so the RIAA buys lots of computers and net access for their office workers, but doesn't appreciate being FORCED to support someone else's special interest group? Too bad.
And as to starving geeks who can't afford yet another tax? Tough shit. Do without.
[/sarcasm]
As to the, um, freethinker who rated my initial comment as "flamebait" -- I wrote nothing but the exact truth. If you've got a convincing argument as to why I should be penalized with a special-interest tax, I want to hear it.
Tellya what.. when I see Jerry Pournelle again (probably tomorrow, in fact) I'll ask him what HE thinks of such ideas. That oughta be good for a laugh.
Taxes, once instituted, ALWAYS creep upward. Very much like erosions of civil liberties. Foot in the door, and all that.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
... you're closer to the truth than you probably realize. The budget on Brian de Palma's awful Mission to Mars was US $90 million... more than 75% of the budget of an equally-flawed but substantially better-intended real-life mission.
When Hollywood drops a bomb, nobody cares. When NASA loses a similar amount of money trying to advance human knowledge, it's practically the end of the world. Congressional inquiries are launched, indignant editorials are published, and modern-day Great Society pundits bemoan the tragic waste of funding that could have gone to their own pet causes.
This is the unfortunate reality of publicly-funded space exploration. It's perhaps the ultimate embodiment of the "bread and circuses" social phenomenon that attended the fall of Rome. Never mind the urban myths -- think of the money NASA could have saved if they actually had hired Stanley Kubrick to stage the Apollo missions in the Nevada desert. Apparently, that would have been good enough for us.
Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.
Just because the guy has a stupid idea does not make it cool to take shots at people that work at supermarkets. We do not know what he does in his work capacity. Maybe he is an executive.
It is sad for me to see it when "educated" people ridicule others for what they do for a living.
Next time just keep it on topic
There HAS to be a big project to catch the imagination and attention of the next generation of Space exploration workers. Right now Space is Boring. Computers are hot, no one is growing up wanting to be an astronaut anymore. There needs to be something done to fire the imagination of the world again, we're so embroiled in our petty border squabbles between people of differently shaded skin or slightly modified philosphy that people can't realize that we are all human, we are all at heart the same, and we should all be working together to spread ourselves to the stars. It's possible, it can be done, and it will be done. I'd love to live to see it, and I'm willing to pay to make it happen.
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
The NASA budget is driven by politics, not revenue. If this 1% tax yielded any noticeable funds for NASA, the gain would be offset when they take away funds from the general revenue. Naturally, this is justified by the limitless "needs" of "social" programs.
Politicians are scum but they are smarter than the typical slashdotter. A SciFi tax will accomplish nothing. If an extra billion comes in from a SciFi tax then the politicians will reduce traditional NASA funding by a billion so they can spend that money elsewhere. This is an old trick and you should have recognized the pattern, "state lottery income will increase funding for schools", "a slight increase in the gasoline tax will increase highway funding", etc.
intelligence != common sense
intelligence != good judgement
By your logic: "I work for a living and pay income tax, and am not even
vaguely interested in the welfare program. So why should *I* be taxed for it??"
Same could be applied for nearly every government program.
The solution is to fund all government programslike that.
Why should we be forced to have our money sent to airport companies for a bailout? We spent 20 billion dollars bailing them out!
You are right, interest should decide how much is spent on where, however we dont have a true democracy, we are a republic and thats going against the nature of the government itself.
You allow US to decide where the money goes, and most of the people in the government and congress will be out of a job.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Let's see... we spend $125B a year in corporate welfare. NASA is asking for a little over $15B. Which one is most likely to see cuts?
The economic benefits of the space program go far beyond Tang and Hubble calendars. The space race is second only to war for causing advances in technology. (Not that it's a race anymore.) Sure, a lot of the funding goes to dog-and-pony type operations, and things that count more towards PR than knowledge; but considering the return rate for the knowledge we *do* glean, why the *HElL* are we so tight with funding?????
Taxing SF to fund NASA is like taxing full-contact sports to fund war, or taxing Big Wheels to fund roads. Everyone reaps the benefits (except those who die in the war, I guess); everyone should pay. Hell, they didn't ask if I wanted to help fund the S&L bailout; why should they ask short-sighted tight-fisted bastards if they want to fund space research?
If they want to use opt-in funding, they should do that for everything. I don't want to bail out Enron and Boeing and the airlines; send my money to NASA and university research, instead.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Heaven forbid that a person go to college to learn rather than for job training.
This is how NASA should be making its money:
The real issue isn't the funding of NASA, it's the funding and managing of Space initiatives.
When the Soviets launched Sputnik, the world's first artificial satellite, the US government felt challenged to respond. The result was NASA receiving about 1% of US government revenue to land the first men on the Moon.
But there was another way that was overlooked. A consortium of Bechtel Engineering (builders of the Hoover Dam and other massive projects) and Disney (Walt was in charge in those days) could have done the Apollo Project without government funding -- and made money by doing so.
I applaud this as an attempt to come up with an imaginative approach to Space funding. That said, I'd suggest folks keep looking.
Science fiction has been subsidizing Space development for years by giving it ideas. Consider then extreme case of Arthur C. Clarke, who gave the world the concept of telecommunication satellites. Rather than patent the idea, Clarke included the idea in a science fiction story. By putting the concept into public domain in this way, Clarke personally subsidized the Space sector to the tune of billions of dollars by not requiring royalties from everyone who uses them.
Like the whole semiconductor industry.
They should really be paying, as the stuff that NASA develops eventually filters down to the high-tech companies to use in new products.
Now, I'd sure like to do my part in adding to NASA's budget, since I think NASA is doing a fantastic job and gets little or no recognition. So if a "scifi" tax got implemented I don't think I'd be against it.
What bothers me is people often find it hard to give NASA money (eg, politicians), because of the "oh, we've been to the moon, and walked in space, what else is there?" mentality.
But that's exactly the point! What else is there, and what can we learn?
Just look at history... limiting space budget only hurts us. We could already have had a colony on Mars for 10 years if it wasn't for cutbacks after we went to the moon.
He's running for public office, and apparently proposed this tax as part of his campaign; as citizens it's our JOB to pass judgment on him (thus electing him or not). If he says dumb things in public, he'll be judged accordingly.
;)
Think of voting as moderating on a massive scale.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
But he isn't taxed "extra" for it. That is the point. As it stands, almost all taxes go into a general fund, which then pays for everything, whether a given taxpayer supports it or not. Then we hire people to decide what things a large chunk of taxpayers want, and pay for those things. While paying taxes is sometimes painful, I think I get a reasonable value for my tax dollars, and I don't resent that that is the price to pay to live in my country.
I also support the space program. I think in the short term there is a lot of valuble science that we can do in space, and in the long term our destiny lies in the stars. NASA has some problems, but overall I support both manned and unmanned space exploration.
However, if the government is charging me extra to support the space program, I want tax credits back for the missle defense system, which I think is a useless, worthless waste of money and time that is unlikely to work reliably and less likely to protect against relevent threats in the next 20 years. But that is not a choice I get to make alone. and if in 15 years, and ICBM with a nuclear warhead is shot down by the system (unlikely as it seems to me) lots of people will be glad that military and technology experts much more familiar with threats and countermeasures got to make the decision rather than just one guy.
Finally, earmarked taxes have been found to be extremely ineffective. Lottery revenue in some states is earmarked for education. On the face of it, this is an effective idea: tax stupid people to fund education to make more smart people. Unfortunately, in practice this tends to make the legeslatures allocate correspondingly less from the general fund to education. Education gets little or no real benefit, but the belief that it is "supporting education" sells lottery tickets.
How is working at a supermarket an "iregular" job that only a "total nutcase" would take? Because it is "unskilled labor" and doesn't require an education? That may be true, but that does not mean it is idle, easy work that doesn't require some work and dedication. Because it is low paying? Not really. Safeway cashiers make up to like $19/hour. That's not too shabby, and is a lot more than many office workers make. My friend was an assistant manager at Safeway and he was making about $23/hour plus overtime. That's more than I make working on a helpdesk. And I have heard that store managers at large supermarkets can make up to $80k/yr. That's more than many IT jobs pay. Don't think you are all high and mighty because you work in an office doing "skilled work" or whatever.
It's that everyone benefits. If they only let us Sci-Fi geeks reap the rewards then sure, tax only us 1%. But if I see a none Sci-Fi person using the next great intellectual property to come out of NASA, I'm going to be pissed.
"Hey, the Sci-Fi people paid for that space age coating on that pan! Hand it over!"
That's why responsible targeted taxes are used to pay for the costs of the tax payer, in theory at least. Such as taxing cigarettes to pay for health costs.
Yeah, it's an interesting idea, but I'm not sure I like it as a precedent.
Let's take this a step or two further and see how it could be applied in other areas.
Taxing copies of 2000 Leagues Under the Sea to fund deep sea research.
Taxing Rambo movies to fund military programs.
Taxing copies of the Bible to fund christian charities.
Taxing snow sports to fund research in Antarctica.
It's just too contrived. Of course, it doesn't sound like it will get anywhere near Washington anyway.
Donate background CPU time to fight cancer.
How would a bomb shelter have any effect on you surviving a terrorist nuclear attack? Do you plan to live there?
yet not a single bomb shelter, no way to stop a biological attack, no way to stop nuclear attacks, no way to stop terrorist attacks like 911.
Guess what? That's because there is no way to stop loonies like that. How will you ever defend against the possibility of two guys with a backpack nuclear bomb blowing up New York? Perhaps we should outlaw backpacks?
Here's the rub - the only way to protect the US population is to stop making enemies and to work against poverty and illiteracy all over the world. The guys who get drafted for fundamentalist causes are mainly poor and uneducated orphans from the streets. A standard brainwash takes place, where the organization offers food and shelter, thus getting total emotional control over the victim.
Opinions stated are mine and do not reflect those of the Illuminati
Here's the rub - the only way to protect the US population is to stop making enemies and to work against poverty and illiteracy all over the world. The guys who get drafted for fundamentalist causes are mainly poor and uneducated orphans from the streets. A standard brainwash takes place, where the organization offers food and shelter, thus getting total emotional control over the victim.
I disagree. For a start, working against poverty and illiteracy to us is understood to be cultural imperialism by much of the Middle East. In many parts of that region, the only reason that children are taught to read is so that they can read the Qu'ran. The only reason that there isn't universal poverty is oil - Saudi Arabian universities turn out more graduates in Religious Studies than they do engineers, doctors, etc. What I'm trying to say is, there is no way to address illiteracy and poverty - by our standards - without a radical overhaul of the society, but even trying to do that is provocative to terrorists.
Secondly, the terrorists that would be provoked aren't poor or illiterate. Osama himself is a multi-millionaire who has travelled extensively in the West. Sheik Omar, on trial for the kidnap and murder of Daniel Pearl, was educated at the London School of Economics, one of Europe's most prestigious universities. Osama's second in command was a dentist before becoming an international gangster.
But you are right to a certain extent, the way for the US to stop making enemies is to stop intervening in other cultures unless it is specifically for the defense of the mainland (or perhaps to help a long-term ally).
We need a space program which is not at the whim of the government of the day, or the will of the people (who are more interested in Oprah's weight than weightlessness).
A Mars mission would be a big fanfare for those who like to see people saluting flags, but not for long-term space exploration. It would suck up funding from everything else in sight, and TV coverage would be cancelled by the 2nd week. After that, no more funding. What's the point of flag-waving if no-one is watching?
Anyway, who said space had to be all gosh-wow? Is the welfare program gosh-wow? Are farming subsidies gosh-wow? Why should space exploration be any different? I was struck this morning by the low-key, no fanfare approach of the launch from Baikonur. No countdown, and about as much fuss as launching a boat. That's what we need - willingness to get the job done, without need for spectacle and fanfare.
In order to insulate the space industry from reliance on fanfare, we need to get it self-funding as quickly as possible, and asteroid mining is the most obvious medium-term objective.
I say skip the moon. It's still at the bottom of a hole, and the regolith on the moon is poorer as ore than the slag we throw away from refining plants on Earth.
Therefore, I propose a cancellation of all manned Mars mission plans and instead concentrate on sending an automated factory to a NEO by 2025.
It should create something useful in Earth orbit (solar cells? steel girders? fuel? water?) and launch a package or packages back to LEO for less money than it would have taken to get them up there from Earth in the first place.
Also, scrap the shuttle and contract out to commercial launch companies. Award development grants and incentives for cheap launch technology.
And above all, let's stamp on the meme that Space = NASA. It doesn't.
Sean Ellis
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Why does someone who works in a grocery store have to be a "nutcase" and why isn't it a "normal job"? Plenty of smart people work jobs like that; in fact, I would bet that the managers of those stores probably all have college degrees.
A store manager is not some shitty job. These people are in charge of hundreds of employees, millions in merchandise and millions in cash. Not to mention an entire giant building which needs electricity, HVAC, the floors and bathrooms need to be clean all the time, plus all of the tools like meat slicers, ovens, freezers, cash registers, accounting, payroll, scheduling, sales, bitchy customers, etc etc. I can go on, but I think you get the point.
Yes, working at a grocery store is not a regular job. It is much more challenging. So get a life you unwise person.
Cool! Amazing Toys.
That's a very broad, and also incorrect statement. There are different reasons for playing the lottery, and it is possible to play the lottery with a realistic expectation of your chance to win (ie. negligible at best).
Think of this - If there's a large pot to be won, I can buy a ticket and spend the intervening time until the draw daydreaming about all of the cool things I could do with the money. I *KNOW* that the chance of me winning is so small that I won't get my hopes up, but all the same I can still dream - it's almost like buying a cinema ticket to go and watch something that is far removed from your regular day-to-day life, only cheaper. I can't daydream of winning the lottery if I hadn't bought a ticket, and since for most of us, it's the only readily apparent way we'll get a large amount of money for free (however long the odds), why not indulge once in a while?
Of course, buying a lottery ticket every week, or even buying several, is a pretty dumb thing to do, and it's that which makes the lottery a tax on the stupid.
I'd say that smart people don't play the lottery with the expectation of winning, rather than saying that they don't play it at all.
PS. I don't think that the definition of either 'Smart People' or 'Lottery' even mentions the other.
You know, I guess I'm the last of the rubes, and proud of it. I don't feel "robbed" every April 15th. Yes, I'd love it if my tax bill could be (responsibly!) lowered, and yes, I cringe hearing about all the spending misfires and pork projects. But I am still proud to contribute to the "general welfare" of the United Stated. Government serves a noble purpose and government, like other things in this society, costs money. As Justice Holmes says, taxes are the price you pay for civilization. I look at the civilization we have built and I think the price is still low -- a few thousand dollars a year in exchange for personal liberty and the rule of law? A bargain by any measure.
Is this something out of Life of Brian? We get roads, and hospitals, and police protection. And emergency rescue teams and fire stations and national defense. And schools and universities and libraries. And agricultural development and city planning and trade deals. And of course the highest-quality scientific and technological research anywhere, ever, producing and funding such things as the Internet through which you post your screed and through which we suffer to read it.
Well, now we get to the main cause of the trouble. If that's what you find "satisfying", then I am absolutely ecstatic that our government disappoints you. See beyond the animal and perhaps you won't be quite so dismissive.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Wouldn't it be great if your 1040 form had an extra page that broke down different areas of government spending, and you could fill in where your money goes (e.g. 10% military, 30% healthcare, 60% research) or a "leave it up to Congress" check box. Of course, that would be too much like democracy -- if Americans could decide how their money gets spent, our "representatives" might actually have to do some real work. As for taxing science fiction to pay for space, if Congress taxed Hollywood 1% for every movie it made, we'd probably have golf courses on the moon by now.
And "whites" are the oppressors? All the problems WE have caused huh? I swear in this day and age it's become wrong to stereotype anyone or judge them based on their skin color unless they're white. Afterall we are the oppressors . . .
NASA isn't the answer to getting off this planet. It will be commercial interests that get us in orbit, and beyond... NASA is primarily a military-style organization (owned by the government), which means it's got a bad case of the bloat.
Compare the cost of the space shuttle, and re-usable SSTO (single-stage-to-orbit) prototypes. You can build and launch a re-usable SSTO with "off the shelf" componenents for orders of magnitude less than the cost of a single space shuttle mission.
I don't want a tax on the products I buy to be pigeon-holed for an organization like NASA. Let them set up a treasury bond for NASA instead.
Remember how well Lt. Data's tear ducts worked? Ha! Seven of Nine is in for a surprise...
is to tax it.
By gum, authors already have a hard enough time making a living writing. Only a small percentage actually make a very good living. The bulk are scraping by as it is.
With the regular price increases of books as it is, adding another tax on top of the current city/county tax will NOT help sales.
Look what happened to the yacht industry 15 years ago. Congress decided that only rich people bought them, and decided to add a hefty tax to the sale (no pun intended). People stoped buying the boats, and the mfrs went out of business. Lots of jobs lost with the net effect of DECREASING tax revenue.
I'm not sure if the industry is even back yet. The tax was repealed, but the industry was dead.
Start taxing books even more, and this will not help the literacy problems that the US already has.
To tax only sci-fi products makes no sense. Sure, the space program is expensive, and desperately needs more funding, (and less of the 'faster, better, cheaper' crap if you ask me) but why should only sci-fi fans have to shoulder the burden of the space program? Everyone from people in IT, agriculture, engineering and many other fields, (not to mention consumers) benefits from the discoveries made in space, and the technology we develop to get there. There are a virtual plethora of technologies we wouldn't have today if it weren't for the pioneering efforts of scientists working for NASA. There's a reason this shouldn't be taken seriously, and it's not because they guy works in a grocery store!