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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."
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.
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.
US R&D only seems to make money for China these days
Which makes sense.
If you're free from your employer supplied healthcare plan capitalism can flourish. Suddenly everybody becomes a free agent able to start their own competitive business.
The risk of creating your own business and going it alone is dramatically reduced. You don't have to literally wory about dieing and or going completely bankrupt for life because you quit your job.
Large projects still need large groups of people. But many tasks can be accomplished by smaller businesses which aren't able to compete with the insurance pool of a larger company. Universal healthcare is a boon for capitalism. Calling it socialist is incredibly short sighted by unimaginative people looking for political gain.