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Obama Says 3% of GDP Should Fund Science Research And Development
tritonman writes "Obama wants to set a goal that the US spend 3% of its GDP on scientific research and development. 'I believe it is not in our character, American character, to follow — but to lead. And it is time for us to lead once again. I am here today to set this goal: we will devote more than 3 percent of our GDP to research and development,' Obama said in a speech at the annual meeting of the National Academy of Sciences."
I'm for this if they can keep administration costs below 1 billion.
...how much were we spending before? This doesn't seem like a tremendously large number.
We already spend more than 3% of GDP on Science R&D....
Oh, he means the government should spend 3% of GDP on R&D. Of course. Can't trust that shifty-eyed private industry. You know... The ones generating the GDP.
The research will in fact be outsourced to global research and development partners across the globe.
Well, as Time's Person of the Year 2006, I would like to just say that the percentage of GDP coming my way has been woefully below my expectations.
I am a big supporter of getting back into a R&D based funding operation. And I don't mean we should be R&Ding war tools, we should be developing better telecommunications tools, better healthcare tools, better computers for both business and consumer, better cars, better planes, better boats, better shipping technology... everything. There is no reason that America shouldn't be the world leader in all of these things.
Crackin' Wise - Blogging about whatever we want
Otherwise, I just dunno how we're gonna pay for everything here in the very recent past.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
FTA:
In recent years, he said, "scientific integrity has been undermined and scientific research politicized in an effort to advance predetermined ideological agendas." He then drew chuckles, commenting: "I want to be sure that facts are driving scientific decisions, not the other way around," Obama said.
hope none of the 420$ billion makes it's way towards the discovery institute.
I believe that this works out to over $ 200 billion per year. I suspect we spend almost this much already; the trouble is it is mostly for the military, which doesn't always do much for the rest of us.
They don't understand the future value of sending someone to the moon, or studying basic science of bird mating habits, or increasing blue laser efficiency 10% and how it eventually becomes useful. He just wants a job he can report to, and won't think about the future. Nevermind that his job might become outdated in 5 years...
It would be nice if the media would stop glorifying athletes, and stop portraying scientists/engineers/academics as nerds or evil.
..........FULL STOP.
I would like to think they are making this decision because someone finally realized that money doesn't actually grow on trees.
Hopefully these go the way of support R&D by American private enterprise, and don't end up being dumped into government think-tank projects that simply feed the political morass that is Washington.
How about we let individuals and businesses decide where they're going to put their R&D money, not some ivory-tower bureaucrats who are firmly removed from reality?
Really: when it comes to deciding what to do with 3% of your income, don't you want YOU making that decision, instead of total strangers you don't know and who know you less and who are operating on non-sequitor ulterior motives?
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
What the American ppl need is another space race. Nothing instills national pride more than starting the first McDonalds on the moon before China, or beating the ESA in the construction of DisneyMars. We have gotten lazy, we haven't even been on the moon in decades.
I remember from history class there used to be a thing called manifest destiny, where America was ordered by God to spread from sea to shining see. Maybe it's time we spread from Supernova to shining black hole
One man with a gun can control 100 without one
In other words, our children and grandchildren should pay for technological advances that make our lives easier.
"The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale." -- Thomas Jefferson
on how to create money out of thin air. stop spending, mister president. the national debt is at an obscene level.
You have to spend money to earn money.
Rand Simberg asks why express it in terms of percentage of GDP rather than in terms of percentage of federal budget?. The budget is something that the president has some control over...
The Army reading list
I'd be up for 10% if it meant we spent 0% on our two wars. I'm not against spending money on national defense, just our nation, not others.
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
While this sounds like a good idea, I worked for a while at the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory. It was the poster child of government waste. Most of the funding we received was from the DOE and the DOD. Back in its hay-day the INEL was a front runner in nuclear research. Now its a money-pit. 2/3rds of all grant money is skimmed off the top for "overhead" (pays for buildings, security, office space, etc). To make matters worse, each engineer/scientist has a billable rate. This billable rate is again 2/3rds overhead. Half of your time goes to writing grants to get more money. Very few people there were doing actual science. It was very sad for me to experience directly after getting my degree.
The INEL is not alone in its current state. People I worked with from other labs have similar or worse horror stories.
I understand the desire, I just don't have enough confidence in our government to not botch it up.
fat colored?
Beige?
I would like to think they are making this decision because someone finally realized that money doesn't actually grow on trees.
And that's what the research is for: Money Trees.
More Twoson than Cupertino
Unless you want to pit your galleys against Aztec ironclads you'll want an R&D of 20% until you get infantry and artillery. After that you can dial it down to 10% and focus on production.
If you didn't come to party don't bother knocking on my door. Prince '1999'
It would be nice if government spending was reduced by 3% of GDP somewhere else, to make up the difference. It would certainly be a shame if increased government R&D came at the expense of private R&D.
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
I want to support science, but at the same time I am reluctant to take other people's money by force and pass it on to the unelected government bureaucrats to decide which project is worthy (or in practice which scientists can beg the loudest) of getting a share of it. The whole process is inefficient, immoral and fraught with possibilities for waste and abuse. Eliminate income tax and replace it with voluntary program where people can donate a share of their income to be used for purposes of their choice and if they want to fund science fine, if they don't then they accept the risk that they and their children will be living in a country that is lagging behind in science. What is wrong with that?
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
You're a furry aren't you? ;)
"I hope you know how very lucky you are to know me, because I am so incredibly incredible."
And use the 60's space tech to build us a massive orbital solar power station?
Solve all our power production pollution issues and start down the road of true weather control?
We could employ a LOT of people to crank out Saturn V rockets on a ginormous assembly line.
A LOT more people to design and build the damn orbital solar power stations and even more building the ground receiving stations.
Once done we could launch a few more satellites and start SELLING power to the rest of the world.
We could be energy sellers like a Saudis, only we won't treat our women like cattle. And we can tell the Saudis to go stuff it.
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
What a complete and utter crock. 3% of GDP dedicated to 480,000 scientists.
Does the public get any payback if research develops the Next Big Thing? Nope, the scientist goes off, gets a patent and gets wildly personally wealthy.
Foreclosures are still rising. Unemployment is still increasing. Wages are still falling. This money would be better spent on the people.
If I remember correctly from Simon Singh's Big Bang, the world record for scientific funding is 5% of GDP.
Tycho Brahe got 5% of Denmark's GDP at his height.
"he, who has quotes in his signature, is a douche" - unknown.
I'm for this if they can keep administration costs below 1 billion.
I'm sorry. You must have accidentally woken up in 1974 this morning. We haven't used the singular form of "billion" in reference to any form of Government spending in years.
The CIA factbook claims the US GDP for 2008 was $14.13 trillion, with tax revenues of $2.5 trillion. Three percent of the GDP is $420 billion. The government has no right to decide how the results of the GDP are invested, but I have no doubt that we'll see another $420 billion porkulus bill spending tax revenues and newly printed money.
Gold farming is more lucrative than money trees.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
I can corroborate this claim - I have seen the unredacted original scope statements for this funding.
The 'money trees' utilize new gene-therapy techniques in combination with a hybrid eucalyptus seed to allow germination when the seed is implanted in living human brain tissue.
The money trees grow best out the tops of soft skulls, so the guv' will begin rolling out the program as a welfare alternative marketed to unwed mothers in possession of excess juvenile units.
It's not that I'm against scientific funding. But is he talking about private funding or public funding. It's seems that it's public funding. Ok, what is he willing to cut? Or will there be a science tax? Why didn't he spend the stimulus money on this? It doesn't just fund scientists, but engineers, technicians and the staff to support them. Obama seems to be full of fancy ill-formed ideas that go absolutely nowhere. I also think that George W. Bush's "Let's go to Mars" plan was ill-conceived.
Now if there is to be research done, I want fusion fully funded. There is too much of a drain on Western civilization's resources sending money to Saudi kleptocrats (who only remain in power by backing terrorists). It will also solve the energy to mass problem (enormous amounts of rocket fuel to put something in orbit) preventing a viable space program. I would rather money be spent on regenerating lost limbs with adult stem cells than focus on prosthetic replacements. I can guarantee that there are companies putting a lot of effort into reducing the cost of solar cells (think, a laptop which recharges by leaving it out in the sun because it has a cheap solar cover) and into educational software (or any software which has a market). These are all engineering projects as opposed to science projects.
It will be paid for the same way everything is paid for elsewhere... taxes.
You will see the tax burden in the US raised to 75% or so, but healthcare will be free. And the taxes will be justified based on "now you have free healthcare". And since the taxes will only affect the top earners in the country, nobody in Alabama will notice, much.
Except there will be no more small businesses, because they can't pay the taxes. Big businesses? No problem.
They can't get away from this eventuality. It is really the only way to go, at least short term. And we have seen it coming for a while now.
If by "spend 3% of GDP on R&D" he means "grant tax breaks equal to 3% of GDP to encourage companies to do more R&D" then maybe he's on to something. Economic stimulus and scientific research all in one neat little package.
Any bets on which way the research comes out on any politically charged subject?
Like, say, "global warming"? (Or is that "climate change" this week?) Or how sonar affects sea lions? Or the risks for the endangered North American Wombat? Or how many birds are chopped up by windmills - especially when they're visible from the Kennedy compound?
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I mean seriously? I'm a firm believer in funding more research, don't get me wrong. But where the bloody hell will we get the money? He's already mortgaged my 20X great-grandchildren's future, what is left?
Obama is INSANE. He thinks money grows on trees. Or he knows he's a one term president and doesn't give a rats ass about us after that.
Why can't we put someone in office who's not an incompetent asshole?
Pax Vobiscum
Top news today, a president said we should do something that sounds good. More at six.
Where were you complaining the last 8 years as the government ran up $TRILLIONS in debt, like on an unnecessary and neverending war? Or on unleashing free credit money while wages stayed the same?
From where are you pulling "75% taxes"? What else can we do to work our way out of the hole "we" dug ourselves into?
--
make install -not war
Does this include new ways to torture detainees? Because if we can find a humane way of extracting information from prisoners without violating anti-torture laws, this is great.
... he would get Congress to repeal the Bayh-Dole Act, and give the fruits of publicly-funded research back to the real researchers and the public, instead of allowing it to be monopolized by department heads and multinational corporations.
on how to type message posts that make sense without having to clip together the subject with the message.
Today at lunch I had to run some errands, so I turned on the radio, still tuned to an AM channel I catch a show on in my morning commutes.
On the radio is one Mike Gallagher, I've never heard him before, so I figured I'd give it a listen.
He played the first maybe 15 seconds of Obama's speech from this morning's conference. The part about "we must not allow the US to fall behind". But instead of playing the rest of the speech, which I had heard in full earlier in the morning, he stopped there. He didn't complete the context nor even mention the investment in education and research. He played that first sound bite, then stated repeatedly that Obama was going to use the Swine Flu to push Universal Health Care through. He then went on to cite "a blog" that had post about how we need to close off the boarders, because it is due to our open boarders that the illegal immigrants have brought the swine flu to the US and events like 9/11 happen.
I was dumb struck. I could understand the half quote and missing context to attempt to rile the base up in opposition to universal health care. Not that it will do much good, the Dems are looking to have enough votes to ram through damn near anything they want at this point. But to blame the swine flu on illegal immigrants?
Most of what I've read on the migration of the flu has been primarily due to College and High-school kids who went to Mexico over spring break. Unless Gallagher is suggesting that rogue illegal Mexican immigrants are jumping from Mexico to the mid west and up to New Your with out infecting anyone on the way. And once they are in those locations, they are not seeking medical assistance.
But to go even further as to blame 9/11 on lax boarder security, when all of the 9/11 hijackers were in the US on legal VISAs...
It is insulting and immoral to spread such lies. I am continuously amazed at the lack of factual information on syndicated radio broadcasts.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
If you were silent when Bush started the Iraq war and when Wall Street got bailed out, you need to STFU.
We're already in debt so deep because of his idiocy we may never recover. Why not spend a little more? http://blog.heritage.org/2009/03/24/bush-deficit-vs-obama-deficit-in-pictures/
Dallas Real Estate
More funding ~= more fundamental discoveries.
More funding = more money soaked up by researchers with good connections to the NSF and NIH
Aside from borrowing record amounts of money, the federal reserve has been printing new dollars at an increased rate. Currently, those dollars are being hoarded, so there's no inflation, but once the economy recovers, there will be noticable inflation from those new dollars and that TARP money that's sitting in banks.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
I believe it is not in our character, American character, to follow -- but to lead. And it is time for us to lead once again
Which implies that he expects other people to be followers. That he expects that other nations won't, can't, or shouldn't be doing the same or better (otherwise, we wouldn't be leading them). Which is it? His international apology tour doesn't really jive with the message that, "Don't worry, Estonia, we're superior, and we'll do the research, you just follow us, OK?" Talk about your fair-weather meritocracy. This whole manifest destiny stuff doesn't sit well with him unless he can use it to woo academics, unions, and other "I'll need your votes in three years" demographics.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Can I also get my flying car, too, dammit?!?!
And I call myself a grammar nazi. :P
If a man with free healthcare breaks his leg in the forest and there's no doctor to treat it, does he still have free healthcare?
The New York Times recently reported:
The experience of Massachusetts is instructive. Under a far-reaching 2006 law, the state succeeded in reducing the number of uninsured. But many who gained coverage have been struggling to find primary care doctors, and the average waiting time for routine office visits has increased.
Some of the newly insured patients still rely on hospital emergency rooms for nonemergency care,. said Erica L. Drazen, a health policy analyst at Computer Sciences Corporation.
Also, Taxation isn't the only way to pay. There is also inflation.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
I believe this is a much welcome change. Instead of focusing on killing people like DARPA does, it can also finance science with a focus on improving lives and quality of living. Instead of destruction of lives and value, with a focus on construction and building of value for our lives. I'm certain that just like DARPA has found many civilian uses for war technologies, this funding will produce many civilian technologies that will be useful for military purposes.
USA has been too military centric for the past 60+ years of war induced paranoia that has driven the government. If Pentagon is famous for something, it is losing track of 2.3 Trillion USD. I think open and public research can keep better track of how and where the money is spent too.
YES! We want CAT GIRLS!!!
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
I don't usually agree with Obama but I'm glad he can see that science is one of the pillars that has made America strong. I was thinking last night that my grandmother saw in just a few decades us go from riding around in horse drawn wagons to going to the moon. That is just amazing. Science did that.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
Which presidents are you referring to exactly??
While I don't feel Jimmy Carter got a fair shake from history. I suspect you are not to implying he is your model president.
If you are referring to Regan. Well, he tried to reduce the budget, but failed miserably. To credit him here is a farce.
Bush Senior deserves some credit for the discipline to raise taxes, but I wouldn't claim he reduced the size of government. He just left things on the road to balance. (unlike Regan)
Clinton has the best case here. His welfare reform did in fact reduce government somewhat and his pro-growth policies seem to grow the economy very successfully and grow income levels in every quartile, but I suspect he wasn't your mystery good president either...
Talking in billions about the US economy is pointless.
1 Billion is not going to make any difference in any budget. US economy is 14 Trillion-ish... .007 % GDP.
1B is roughly
If you had a coherent point about why this is not pro-growth or why this is inefficent stimulus as opposed to the other spending that has been made to stop contraction of US economy ... That might be an interesting discussion and _the sort poeple should be having_ rather than spouting non-sense without reading about the issues and looking at the math.
Tax cuts are an inefficient policy in recessions ... and some spending _will_ have a multiplier higher than one.
Those are facts.
While the numbers sound nice and all I still think that Obama needs to worry more about getting back a country that can produce something that people outside of the US will buy that can create a large number of jobs. It's a tricky balancing act but we really need to bring ourselves back to the understanding that this economic crisis we are in is on many levels; we're not exporting enough and what we do export doesn't generate enough jobs to create the tax base we need to throw money at things we can't reasonably expect to produce future profits.
We've lived off the fat of the America of 1940-1960 for decades and we're starting to see our ribs through our skin. We need prosperity that is good for the country and good for Joe Sixpack at the same time and we simply don't have that today.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
I replied too quickly. My mistake for thinking you had read my posts. The government does have a proper function - a monopoly on force - through the courts, police and military. That would need funding. I can't think of anyone who wouldn't want to fund such an effort, and if they didn't, I'd refuse to trade with them. In fact, I'd build a "tax" into everything I sell, so that I could make a nice donation to the government regularly.
That should be enough for you to figure out the rest. (Though I question whether you'll actually put in the effort - knee-jerk reactions are so much easier!)
After the Republicans won control of Congress, his long-term planned budgets never attempted to balance the budget. Just make the deficit less bad.
The Congress, at the time, wanted more deficit control. Revenues also grew faster than expected.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
How about we let individuals and businesses decide where they're going to put their R&D money
Individuals and businesses can do great things when investors are willing to look at longer windows and actually do R&D spending. Outside those windows, it's an open question. Waiting for private investment to do certain things is in some ways like waiting for evolution to invent the wheel.
Furthermore, there's some evidence that private R&D spending slumps when public R&D spending slumps, in particular when economic times are tough.
R&D spending slumped between the mid-80s and mid-90s due to a drop-off in federal spending. Reports are that generally it's holding right now -- something you could attribute to an outlook of increases from the Obama administration, or even to increased spending by the Bush administration.
not some ivory-tower bureaucrats who are firmly removed from reality?
What evidence do you have that ivory-tower bureaucrats removed from reality are either (a) making the decisions or (b) tend to make bad ones?
Heck, pure mathematicians who take *pride* in actively running down abstract pursuits that supposedly have no application -- we're talking about people who really are a best fit for the terms "ivory-tower" and "removed from reality" here -- almost inevitably find out their achievements end up having some practical use.
Tweet, tweet.
This bugs the shit out of me.
The Government doesn't have any money. They are spending mine.
The government spending money = chips at a casino, it's not personal anymore, it's just plastic chips.
Slash by half the defense budget. You get then a few % assigned to science, a few to SS, a few to economyor whatever, then you spend the rest reduce the debt. You might not even have to close absis or anything, just retrieve people from oversea, and reduce spending on new weapon (while still allowing research).
Spending US federal budget source wiki "Military_budget_of_the_United_States"
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Yeah I know, don't feed the trolls and all, but I just have to bite.
First off, there are more fat white trash mammies sitting at home pregnant waiting for their welfare check than there are fat colored mammies doing the same. There's no reason to get racist on this.
Second of all... what do you think those mammies do with that welfare money? They spend it. So if they get that check, that means you can have more than 200,000 customers. The extra revenue and work needed to supply the demand means more resources for you to increase the number of good, honest people you claim to be giving good paying jobs to. And even if your business does not supply a product or service generally used by mammies, they are probably at least the customer of one of your customers. Or the customer of one of your customer's customers.
And what happens if the mammies are sitting at home not getting a welfare check? They may be convinced to get off the couch and find a job. But what if times are tough and there aren't enough jobs to go around? They will turn to illegal sources of income before starving or letting their kids starve. One of the more popular illegal sources of income will in turn give them more kids to feed, and likely diseases which will add undue burden on the health care system you are helping to pay for (whether it's in taxes through socialized health care, health insurance premiums through traditional free market insurance, or health savings plans requiring your employees to receive higher wages/salary to pay into.) Or maybe they'll turn to shoplifting, increasing the costs you and your customers pay at the store leaving less money for you to employ honest, hard working people. Add on the costs of the increase in police and prisons needed to attempt to mitigate the resultant crime and your business goes further downhill.
If you are sick of seeing welfare checks sitting in the mailbox of a house with a satellite dish, start selling satellite dishes and bigscreen TVs.
Not about the military-industrial complex, but rather, from that same speech
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
Another step in the right direction... science, education, sustainability... all important
Just because technical innovation drove our economy in the past does not necessarily mean it will in the future. It just may be cheaper to do R&D overseas, and that seems to be what is happening.
When a person's education costs more than the entire life salary of his/her overseas competitor, then something is out of whack. Economic theory does not favor one type of activity as being "better" than another as long as it produces income. Thus, a lawyer is no more "valuable" than an engineer of the same income economics-wise. Where does the assumption come from that technology income is better than legal income?
It just may be that those who can take advantage of new ideas will be the top dog, not so much the originator of the ideas. (Original inventors tend to be under-compensated anyhow.) There's tons of patents sitting around gathering dust anyhow. New ideas are relatively cheap. Turning ideas into marketable products appears to be the current bottleneck. This is one reason why Apple is doing well using mostly existing technology.
The "tech gold" assumption should be probed further before dumping billions into potential boondoggles.
Perhaps it could be argued that it's needed to have the best military. However, perhaps it's more efficient to have the best economy, and then buy the best military technology. If you have 5000 AI bomber drones but your competitor could only afford 1500 of the same model, you still have a big leg up. Another assumption that should be probed more.
Table-ized A.I.
In other words, our children and grandchildren should pay for technological advances that make our lives easier.
We're talking about R&D here. While with a lot of focus, some programs yield results in as little as 5-10 years (say, the US vs USSR space race), the benefits are much more likely to filter out over the course of your children's lives than they are to have any kind of near term benefit.
Whether you commit future generations to pay for that is another question, but this isn't short-sighted thinking.
Tweet, tweet.
Thomas Jefferson quotes are now flamebait? Defending an opinion with reason is flamebait?
voluntary program where people can donate a share of their income to be used for purposes of their choice
So I oppose the military activities that our country is taking part in; could I choose to not pay for that?
I haven't called the police department in my community, can I choose to not fund that?
I don't have kids, can I choose to not fund schools?
I haven't used the court system for anything either, can I choose to not fund that?
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Or we'll never get the space elevator wonder before the (American) Indians do. Also, the whining in this forum indicates that we should also build more entertainment centers. If our economy isn't large enough to support this right now we can just direct a few cities to build some settlers and send them out exploring.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
What does this have to do with the president? I don't need a president to tell me the address of some scientist who needs funding. In fact, I'm going to automatically be pretty suspicious of anyone a president does single out.
The catch, is that's he's not suggesting we all decide to spend more. He's saying the we will do so -- he will use his power to make us to it and make sure the money goes to whoever he happens to have in mind.
At first, that sounds harmless. I like funding science. But that's just the problem: I like funding science. If I start forcing people to do what I like, there goes my moral high ground.
Next time, they will tell me what to fund. I'm afraid that isn't going to be science (or anything else that I have chosen to support), and it's not going to be limited to 3% of my paycheck. What am I going to say when that happens, "Hey, I didn't make you fund my science?" I can't say that; my hands will already be dirty.
Don't do this, Mr. President. If we fund science in 2009, we'll be funding churches in 2013, and then science again in 2017, and churches in 2021. Get political winds out of this, so that we can all win instead of all losing.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
Not all spending is the same. The government _should_ be spending money. Only they should be spending on things where the benefits to society outweigh the costs. Certain R&D projects do fall in that category.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
This whole tea party thing is just a gigantic public jackoff orchestrated by Fox news. Primarily because their guiding philosophy is "if their side does it, it's automatically bad." How about all those taxes you paid while Bush II held the reins? Why didn't those chap your ass? He did bailouts too you know, 700B worth as he walked out the door. And oh yeah, also got us into a seriously expensive war or two. Good to see another MSNBC viewer documenting the same talking points.
1) Fox News actually covering an event hardly qualifies as orchestrating anything. Some people might almost think that 350k people gathering in cities across the country qualifies as news.
2) If you pay attention, people aren't protesting taxes in general. I'm tired of the straw man arguement that the tea parties object to all taxes. Other than the most die-hard liberterians and anarchists, most people accept some taxation.
3) Finally, most of us WERE upset about the money Bush was throwing around. While we might have supported national defense, calling W a fiscal conservative is not exactly a reality.
If they do this, I would LOVE to see it required that any and all discoveries/benefits/breakthroughs be public domain if they were funded with public (money the Government got through taxes) funds. Can you imagine the explosion of new tech that would happen if someone discovers something and then turns it over to the 10s of millions of brilliant garage engineers and basement techies out there? That would be so amazing.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It was only balanced if you played games with the money coming in for social security.
If 3% is good, surely 5% is better... 10% would be awesome. Heck, why not 50%? I mean government knows best, right?
I'm from the Netherlands where we're taxed somewhat more than you US-ians. I must say we have plenty of small businesses; from my many visits to the US, I guess we might have relatively more small businesses that are not part of some chain than in the US actually. This is just from looking around though, I have no data.
"what do you think those mammies do with that welfare money? They spend it. So if they get that check, that means you can have more than 200,000 customers. The extra revenue and work..."
Yeah, thats all well and good until you consider the fact that the welfare came from him to begin with, so he is essentially giving his goods away.
Learn this and learn it well, money is an abstraction of goods/services. If I take 10% of Person A's goods that they created themselves, and give it to Person B, who did not create anything and say to Person A "do not worry about it, because now Person B has goods and services to trade back to you so you can flourish!" it doesn't make any sense, and neither do you.
Also, Taxation isn't the only way to pay. There is also inflation.
which is really just a tax anyways.
Government money in the hands of institutions to do research end up in patents, which are then either used directly or licensed for use to company's that then charge people for the products or things made from those patents.
In other words, A) you pay for the research with your tax money so that you can then B) pay **again** to have the benefit of the products or things made form research you helped finance!
It's a fricken scam of the highest order!
If any tax payer money is used to fund research, then patents should not issue, period, as the research information, results, etc. belong to the people that financed it, namely, tax paying citizens.
The current way it works, it is fraud!
I wonder where all these budget hawks were when we chose to pour almost a trillion on foreign wars and strip deregulation over the last decade and cause the banks to become a huge black bailout hole? Funny thing is the people objecting most now to some money finally being spent on something we can get a great return on like scientific research, now they whine and moan about budget. How stupid are we? This is what we should be investing in. This is what we have to invest in unless we want to be a total nobody as a nation in the future.
A right is a freedom of action. If you choose to live, it is right for you to use your mind to select values and goals in keeping with your choice, and to figure out how to support those values and achieve those goals. Someone who acts irrationally is acting contrary to his life. So someone who attacks another, for example, is acting irrationally, and is no different from a dog in that respect (psychologically). The purpose of a court is to determine if and when they will be capable of choosing life, choosing to act rationally in the future.
This makes me happy that:
-we are finally going to be doing more research
-less money will be spent on killing soldiers
-Obama is starting to enact real change
But, it makes me depressed that:
-As a people, spending THREE percent of our money on science, research, new tech is a GOAL. These things are so ridiculously important you'd think we'd be spending more. Oh well.
In this Fact Sheet it says:
"This goal would be met with both public and private investment." Also mentioned is the fact that in Fiscal Year 2010 this includes, on the public side: "...$75 billion to make the research and experimentation tax credit permanent..."
Right, so to accomplish this goal of 3.0% of GDP, all he needs to do is spend 0.3% of the Federal budget on it.
It will be paid for the same way everything is paid for elsewhere... taxes.
You will see the tax burden in the US raised to 75% or so, but healthcare will be free. And the taxes will be justified based on "now you have free healthcare". And since the taxes will only affect the top earners in the country, nobody in Alabama will notice, much.
Except there will be no more small businesses, because they can't pay the taxes. Big businesses? No problem.
They can't get away from this eventuality. It is really the only way to go, at least short term. And we have seen it coming for a while now.
Joe Plumber... is that you? Yes. Raising taxes 3% for the top 5% while lowering taxes for the other 95% of the country is evil deeds. Especially when that 3% on the 5% existed before Bush started making the biggest gap between the rich and poor since the 1920's. Small businesses aren't effected by any tax increase unless there Profit (not revenue) is past $250,000 a year. If you a business owner is taking home more than $250,000 a year, then yes, he will be in a higher taxed bracket. However, 98% of small businesses do NOT fall in this category. GLHF.
According to the NSF:
In 2007, the US spent $368 billion on R&D, 2.6% of GDP.
Of that spending, $245 billion was from private industry and $98 billion was from the Federal Government (there was other, smaller, spending by non-profits and non-Federal goverment).
Overall R&D spending by the United States far exceeds that of all other countries, although a few (such as Japan, South Korea, and Sweden) exceed the US on R&D to GDP ratios. Sweden is highest at 3.73%. France only has 2.11% and the UK only has 1.78%.
Fox News anchors *hosted* some of the larger ones. They also helped find and setup others. To say that doesn't qualify as orchestrating anything is downright ridiculous.
What planet are you from? I don't know what you mean by "administration", but try somewhere in the 20%-40% range an institution takes for overhead, which includes "administration". I know a case where the "overhead" for one grant is greater than the researcher's entire salary.
Yes, Obama, the answer is more market disruption. We are all too stupid to identify research opportunities that will likely provide benefit outweighing than the costs. I'm tired of relying on scientists to determine what should be researched. I completely believe that government bureaucrats with little or no formal training in science are best suited to make these decisions for our country.
I hope they at least have the foresight to research actual fruit-bearing money trees instead of the kind that just grow worthless American dollars.
Note that he didn't say "government R&D". I take that to mean that some of that 3% will be government spending (which Obama can increase directly) and some of it will be private (which Obama can increase through various incentives).
According to the NSF, R&D versus GDP is now about 2%, and was 2.8% as late as 1992. So a goal of 3% is actually only a 50% improvement, and only slightly better than levels we've actually achieved in the past.
One thing that's bothered me for some time: corporations seem to be less and less interested in investing in R&D to develop new products. Instead, they spend it on advertising to push the products they already have. Or else they spend huge sums to acquire companies whose products look promising.
Big Pharma is extremely addicted to both strategies. (Notice all the drug commercials and news about mergers.) And yet when anybody complains about drug prices, they point to the need to earn back their R&D costs. If only that were true!
Any, the O guy is right: this is not something we can afford to skimp on. Science and technology have always been important to both our economy and our sense of WTF we are. The way we've let them slip is both shameful and short-sighted.
I'll agree that many great things have come from R&D for war, but that doesn't mean it must be that way.
If our goal and focus was on keeping people alive, living healthier, helping other countries thrive - and we pursued it with the same ambition we've had for war and "defense" many great things could come from it.
If I say many great things have come from my gym membership and that it would be foolish to drop it it is only partially true. Many great things have come from it, but that is not to say my $60 a month couldn't accomplish equal health and great things going else where.
Leadership by example and leadership by force are two different ideas. Telling someone that they will give up their resources or die, and telling them that they are welcome to buy technology from you probably would elicit different responses.
I know this doesn't jive with your jingoistic bias. But, that's reality for you.
"is how to in fact, make money grow on trees!"
That's easy. Legalize hemp. Next.
As an actual scientist, this is a great idea. I figure he is talking about in part adding more money to funding agencies such as NIH and NSF. This is a needed boost as the funding rate of grants nowadays is in the single digits, as opposed to well above 50% a little over a decade ago. This means that less money is available to pay professors, students, lab techs, and as you go on down the line of university personnel to supply companies etc. Here's an article on funding over the last few decades http://www.scienceprogress.org/2009/01/nih-funding-to-states/ . You'll notice after Bush II took office, the NIH funds weren't increased proportionally and so research funding is stalling. I think Obama's idea is a great one, but of course I'd think that since my job is paid for through NIH grants. However, so should you since everything we scientists do, allows you to live a better, longer life.
Except there will be no more small businesses, because they can't pay the taxes. Big businesses? No problem.
Right. Because if there's one thing those socialist paradises like France and Sweden are known for, it's their massive, out of control multinational corporations. Just the sort of huge businesses that couldn't exist in somewhere like America.
Yes, lowering taxes for 95% of the country is evil. Close to 50% pay not taxes at all, and a rising % actually are reverse taxed (receive money from the government). Everyone in the country should pay their fair share.
The system right now is corrupt and political, and must be removed. My solution (and I realize it is not a perfect system, but then again no system of taxation is perfect) is a repeal of the income tax, and the institution of a 15% sales tax on everything physical except for food, basic housing supplies (toilet paper, soap, ect) and clothing items under $100.00. This tax would not effect the destitute, who would only afford the non-taxed items, and would for the most part be born by the same people who bear the tax burden now.
However, it would remove the black hole that is the tax preparation industry. It would also put more money into industry, as there would be a lower tax burden (as an example, in combined state and federal taxes, the company I work for pays over 50% of revenue in taxes.)
Anyways, that's my idea.
If you've played Civilization, we all know that you need to spend at least 50 or 60 percent of all tax revenue on science. Unless you have the Great Library of course.
You don't get to back a horse to the hilt and then claim it "wasn't conservative enough". A lot of conservatives didn't like Bush's spending and did NOTHING about it for eight years, as he plowed the country under a massive debt, funding unproductive wars and killing thousands of Americans.
You do not get your cake and eat it, too.
I am a scientist who believes strongly that government funding of R&D needs to be increased. Often times, I hear the argument that it is not the government's role to do this. Most of our basic R&D now occurs in the universities and the national labs. But it wasn't always so.
Several years ago, I was an intern at Bell Labs, in Murray Hil, NJ, the main research engine of AT&T before the 1984 breakup. Some of the greatest inventions of the 20th century were created there, including the transistor and the laser. The cosmic microwave background was discovered at Murray Hill as well, an example of a pure scientific discovery, serendipitous but yet made more likely by the concentration and dynamic of the brilliant minds working there. As time went on, the research became more and more applied, less basic, less fundamental.
By the time I got there, Bell Labs was part of Lucent, which was a slave to its stock price. All kinds of financial shenanigans were going on in the background, and the business had become focused almost solely on fiber optics and other communications media/equipment. Some of the leftovers from the glory days of basic R&D were retiring, but there were still quite a few more recent hires. These people were let go during my summer. It was sad. It was the death of Bell Labs. All that were left were the old fogies and the people doing work related to the core business. Lucent's stock tanked, and the whole company became a shell of what it once was, and Bell Labs became special only in the history books.
Bell Labs was the greatest death of the old industrial research powerhouses. Few are left, most notably IBM. But even these are more application-oriented than in the past. They depend on the government to fund basic R&D in its labs and universities to keep the technology engine revving. Should that process stop, perhaps industry will revert to its old way, but that will not be a quick process. For almost a generation, we would be left with our pants down while our global competitors assert the lead in the technology race. This will put us at not just an economic disadvantage, but in poor strategic positioning politically. It is paramount that we fund basic R&D via government funds now. If we desire a different system where private industry does the brunt of basic R&D, then we must redesign the system via proper incentives to allow for a smooth transition to such a paradigm. Maintaining science funding at the levels they are at right now is not sustainable in the short term- the quicker we enhance funding, the better off we will be.
We've all got to pay for healthcare. Required, y'know, like automobile insurance. But employers, unless they're dinky dinky mom and pop shops, must offer insurance. If your employer can't afford it, you can buy into the state plan for relatively cheap.
It's not a perfect plan by any means. I just spent two hours waiting for an exam-- but it is way, way better than other places I've lived: Virginia & New York, where you're just SOL if your employer doesn't offer coverage, and if you're working for an employer who doesn't offer it, you are guaranteed not to be able to afford it yourself.
Massachusetts-- imperfect, but better than you.
Not trees, algae. If oil is black gold, I think we'll soon be calling this green gold.
there is no god but truth, and reality is its prophet
But inflation is a tax on the financially uneducated. If you're not sure if owning treasuries during inflationary periods is a good or bad idea, you're likely financially uneducated.
That's one of the big reasons why inflation is ok... it doesn't hurt the financially well educated rich people nearly as much as a tax increase would hurt.
Inflation is a tax on the poor and middle class.
If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
They control the Federal Budget. If Obama wants to spend 3% of the budget on science, great. But stop pretending that all of the Gross Domestic Output is his to allocate. That is bullshit. One final thing: STOP BORROWING.
Screw change we can believe in. Fiscal responsibility is change we need.
You're missing one option: borrow the money. That doesn't cause inflation like printing money, because the borrowed money comes at a cost - the interest. It essentially all you can do to spur the economy, and when times are good, you should be paying back the deficit, which effectively cools the whole things down.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
the average waiting time for routine office visits has increased.
Apparently, they need to learn the word Appointment. Call ahead, plan it out, schedule it. Then you'll only have to wait 10-15 minutes. Works great. If you can't schedule it as an appointment, then it's not a "routine office visit".
defunct
You'll never get a flying car. At least not in our lifetimes.
It's not for technical reasons - the technology is there. You could, assuming enough capital, get a flying car (or, if you prefer, a drivable airplane).
The problem is with meatbag incompetence. Most people have trouble driving in two dimensions; tens of thousands of Americans die in car accidents. (I'm not looking this up; I think it's 85k, but it's late and I'm tired.) 3D would be beyond the abilities of most drivers.
Cheap, readily available airborne vehicles would be carnage. That's why we won't see it happen.
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
Lower my taxes so I have money to spend on things that will actually stimulate the economy.
If I'm not mistaken, then unless you are a multi-millionaire, he DID lower your taxes.
It seems to me that those tea parties were organized by multi-millionaires who work as talking heads on network news. I'm no Obama fan, but one needs to keep one's facts straight.
It's also a good idea to keep in mind that an enormous number of the luxuries of American technology which you take for granted every day resulted directly from the race to the moon as set in motion by JFK. Would you like to see the that government spending erased from history?
Didn't think so.
-FL
This is inevitable. We have been grossly overspending/undertaxing for 30 years now. Our national debt is so enormous that 3% GDP is a drop in the bucket and nationalized healthcare has the potential to save billions because the costs are killing small businesses right now and drawing from such a large pool of people will reduce per person costs tremendously.
The 1950's were a good time for Americans even though top tax rates were about 90%. I doubt that many small businesses are really going to be affected because they generally do not make enough to qualify for the top tax bracket. Even if a small business does make a lot of money a high top tax rate will force them to spend more money on employees, R&D, investments, and other things to keep them from entering a higher tax bracket.
Time makes more converts than reason
There is no such thing; it's a myth. That's why communism doesn't work. Capitalism is the idea that instead of living in a fantasy world where everyone cares about the common good, we're going to be honest and admit that people are hardwired for certain instincts, one of which (survival) manifests itself in current society as 'greed'. Instead of having a system like communism that is DESTROYED by greed, we have a system like capitalism that thrives on it.
Speak for yourself. I'm not a sociopathic freek hardwired for greed, thank-you very much. I've lived in modern communities where awareness of the common good works extremely well, where greed is punished by simply not including people. The funny thing is that the greedy creeps exist in the extreme minority, though they struggle mightily to convince us otherwise.
It's only when the monsters are allowed to rise to the top that society goes bankrupt, as it is currently doing right before our eyes. If you really do work in neuroscience, then you should have some notion as to how brains of that sort work. But who knows? Perhaps you have a prime example floating around in your own skull; you sure sound angry, arrogant and ignorant enough for that to be the case. --Precisely the type who honestly can't wrap his head around such a basic concept as, "The Common Good". Thinking in ridiculously simplistic terms like, "Communism was bad and Socialism is like Communism, so it's also bad!" is flat-out retarded. And I'm not saying that in the colloquial sense. You're a scientist? Either that's bullshit, or there may be far more pressing issues preventing you from finding funding. People who need to see things in terms of black & white by definition have limited imaginations.
Well, that's not really fair. We still need lab techs to clean the test tubes. The real issue is more likely that any grant application you may have participated in writing over the last eight years was done under Bush Jr. I'm no Obama fan, but it's important to bitch about the right people when expressing one's irritation for a policy. You don't need to be a scientist to work that one out. Which again makes me wonder what your job description really is.
In any case, the whole point is moot. When the national monetary system is based on borrowing at interest from a small cabal of private banks, (as it is here and as it was in Russia, though in a different manner), then it doesn't matter if you build a Communist Empire or Disney World on your plastic. In a hundred years, either the whole thing collapses under its own weight, or everybody becomes a slave.
Get out of your box and breathe something other than your own toxic fumes for a few minutes. You need to clear your head.
-FL
Or well, it will fund more R&D since you are so many but:
Google turned up this:
http://www.riditt.it/documenti/Eurostat2004.pdf
2001 it seems.
"EU spent nearly 2% of GDP on Research and
Development
Ratio highest in Sweden and Finland"
"It was agreed that Member States should strive to achieve
3% of GDP to be spent on research by 2010.
In 2001 R&D expenditure as a share of GDP in the EU was 1.98% and is estimated at 1.99% in 2002, an increase
compared to 1.95% in 2000. However, the gap with regard to R&D expenditure in Japan (2.98% in 2000) and the
United States (2.80%) remained significant. The level reached by the Acceding Countries was 0.84% in 2001.
According to the latest data available, the Member States with the highest R&D intensity were Sweden (4.27% of
GDP devoted to R&D expenditure in 2001) and Finland (3.49% in 2002)."
Sweden:
2006:
http://www.scb.se/Pages/PressRelease____215664.aspx
"In 2006 SEK 108.2 billion was invested in R&D in Sweden. This amount was SEK 4.4 billion more than in 2005, in current prices. As a percentage of GDP, R&D expenses fell slightly from 3.89 percent in 2005 to 3.83 percent in 2006. In comparison, the corresponding figure in 2001 was 4.3 percent. As R&D expenditure during the last five years has not increased in line with the strong GDP growth seen in Sweden, R&D expenditure as a share of GDP has fallen."
So we still win, but then we are rather socialist and all and pay much higher taxes, so 3% while still having low taxes is probably really good.
Interesting that the goal for EU was 3% for 2010, maybe that's why he had to raise the goal? And not become a leader.
So true. I have been a freelance software developer for the last 10 years, but I do have health-care coverage, like everyone else here in the Netherlands. If I should become incapable of earning a living with software, I'll get in trouble, no doubt about it, but I don't think I'll be digging through the trash for food.
I would like to think they are making this decision because someone finally realized that money doesn't actually grow on trees.
It used to until they switched to the plasticized notes...
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
A cry-baby whiner who, in the real world, would run away and be nearly instantly replaced by someone else with the same skills.
Objectivists think they are special snowflakes it seems.
Blar.
Sales taxes tend to hit those more who spend a larger part of their income on goods, usually the lower ranks of society (who spend pretty much 100%), income taxes hit everyone equally no matter whether he spends the money on goods or lets it earn interest in the bank or whatever.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
That, and the whole "easy access to flying vehicles for anyone including Islamic radicals = a bad thing" bit. Do we REALLY want to deal with a thousand mini-9/11's every year just so we can all have that 1950's dream of the future?
I think I'll just be happy to stay on the ground, thank you.
Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
Money does grow on trees.. Didn't you know this?
No moron, because those are traditional necessary evils that we allow our governments to perform.
Many different runs of sewer mains or redundant parallel highways owned by different private companies is not feasible. In fact, its downright stupid.
So long ago, some wise men begrudgingly allowed a government monopoly on such services. To counteract this, watchdog organizations were set up such as Public Utility Commissions - to attempt to forestall the inevitable evil socialist incompetent monopolistic chicanery that always followed.
Necessary, fundamental utility and public safety services whose duplication would be even worse than having a monopoly are what we should rightfully cede to the government to handle. Nothing more.
3% sounds like alot, 10 more points for Obama! But seriously this is good news, you can't stop research just because of a short term crisis. New Discoverys have always led the way to better living conditions and can completly change the rules of the game. A single scientific discovery has the potential of doing more then any amount of legislation by itself.
Couple questions: 1) Is 3% more than in previous administrations? 2) Why not more? and most importantly 3) Who decides what research will be funded and on what basis? Gut reaction? That's all you've got to go on if you don't understand something and it's almost always dangerously wrong. And believe me, politicians' misunderstanding and misinformation far far FAR outweighs what they do understand.
It is kind of funny to hear statements like "the more-efficent public sector" as someone who works for a large corporation I think it is cute when people believe the propoganda about free markets and efficiency - the truth is the last thing any capitalist wants is competition - it sucks, competition means you either have to be smarter or work harder for less than someone else, let me tell you that nobody wants to work hard and people in corporations are not that smart - it also gives people with real skill way too much value, importance and power. Here is the capitalist playbook when dealing with competition... 1) Buy out the competition: preferably with borrowed money from your buddies on wall street... magically you have created value, the competition is gone so you can keep selling your same crap at inflated prices, Fortune magazine will declare you a genious, get on your corporate jet and go to the carribean - hookers and blow for everyone! 2) Create barriers to entry: If you can't buy them out, go to congress, create rules and regulations which favor you, the advantage here is it is much cheaper than option 1 but the nosy public might object to what you are doing... the other option is to patent every idea you can think of and hope it gets in the way of anyone who wants to make a better mousetrap... try to starve them of money too if you can swing it with your banking buddies 3) Create a cartel: if you can't beat em join em! share patents and slice up the world market to support higher prices, real competition is bad for everyone, we all understand that.... 4) Finally as last resort get the government to pay for your R&D, why spend your own money when the government will pay you to do what you should have been doing anyway.... (this is really a last resort, most companies wouldn't know what R&D is if it bit them in the ass) If none of these work milk the company for as much money as you can and then bail out - they are toast! find a new company to run into the ground!
I tend to agree with most of the posters on here that this seems like a worthy usage of our GDP. However, like all government spending programs I have little confidence that it will be managed correctly. I think it would be worthwhile to set up some non-profit research and development firm and use the funding from the GDP for that rather than simply pump it in into government and for-profit corporate think tanks. I believe, to see the real benefit of something like this you need to take the greed out of the picture.
I know.. don't feed the trolls feeding the trolls, but I'm gonna bite too.
Proof there's more whiteys than darkies waiting for their welfare checks? None.
Those mammies are spending that welfare yes, but on booze and other drugs.
If they don't get the welfare check? Their kids grow up to be psycho killers because they were left to raise themselves from the age of 6 months while mommy works the corner and runs drugs.
Then they end up in multiple foster families where they are subjected to further abuse because no one really cares about foster kids.
Then they continue the cycle when they're 14-18.
I am for this funding. Technology is driving the future. If Americans plan on keeping up, we need to utilize much to maintain an active role. It comes down to a basic economic concept, capital versus consumption goods. If we plan for the future investing in capital goods, we will have more consumption goods in the future. If we spend most of our GDP on consumption goods, we will sacrifice future gains in consumption.
interesting that you blame Obama for that. Who got it to this level originally?
I would assume that the US would look like japan, with a lot of useless toys/consumer gadgets, some nicer automotive developments.
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
You apparently fail to understand that the USA isn't a direct democracy. Instead it is a constitutional republic (AKA democratic republic). I've provided links so you can do a comparsion/contrast on your own. However, the main difference is in the former everyone has a vote on each and every issue, in the later citizens elect leaders to make at least some of the decisions for them.
If you you'd rather have the former, take it up with the Founding Fathers, not Obama. They wrote the US Constitution with the idea that direct democracies were generally inferior to elected representatives.
Finally, the money is not anymore spent on useless stuff and on the military.
IMO, we should unite with the European Union in the scientific field and make the best things ever :)
We're not talking the president asking congress to spend more money on post offices or change patent laws. The founders said the republic should make decisions about those things and then clearly left the rest to democracy.
If you want, argue about whether the founders had a good idea or not, but don't try to say they intended for the president and congress to deal with every decision that people can make. The founders were in favor of splitting decisions up between government and people, which is why they were so careful to write that into the laws that we now routinely break.
Wow, I can't believe you would bring the founding fathers and the constitution into this. They aren't on your side. Your side is supposed to say that stuff is outdated and no longer applicable.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump