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."

Comments

Administration

[jgtg32a]

I'm for this if they can keep administration costs below 1 billion.

Re:Administration

[LordKazan]

all five?

clinton had the budget balanced and in a yearly surplus by the end of his two terms

also to everyone: nowhere in that entire article did he propose that it be a government taxing to spend that money - sounds like he means "the government and private entities combined should".

Re:Administration

[Drakkenmensch]

How about we stop runnaway spending and reduce the national debt. All five of the last presidents have had this idea that we can just spend to our hearts content. We are dangerously close to the point that the rest of the world will say enough is enough and stop buying our debt. When this happens, we as Americans will be in a world of Sh!t.

Agreed. Let's start with the biggest tax drain of all: military budget.

Re:Administration

[Joe Snipe]

DARPA isn't enough. If we had a broader mission for R&D than "defense" initiatives, we would be in a position to licence government owned IP to the corporate world without having to wait out our licenses in the name of national security. Having such a commodity reduces the tax burden on on the citizen (from license fees), reduces the corporate need for an R&D dept (lower cost to consumer) and increases quality of publicly available tech (from not being forced to design for maximum profit).

Unfortunately, I don't think this is what anyone has in mind, so get ready for more suck.

Re:Administration

[JoeMerchant]

3% of GDP on "scientific R&D" doesn't mean 3% of GDP on grant funded projects, it means getting corporations and the private sector to get back to the kind of investments they made in the early days of Bell labs...

Re:Administration

[amliebsch]

Except...it's not. Just FYI.

Re:Administration

[Fulcrum of Evil]

removing money from the economy that would be invested by the people who earned it in things that are productive and worth investment

So you think science R&D is unproductive and not worth investment? We've got weather satellites and star trek tech, no thanks to your kind.

Re:Administration

[geoffrobinson]

This may not apply to you, but I really dislike it when people bring up Bush when complaining about Obama's spending.

First, a lot of conservatives and libertarians didn't like Bush's spending, even at the time.

But even if they did, I found the following analogy useful: if my wife overspent consistently while shopping, does she lose the right to be upset if I lose the house and our retirement nestegg in a drunken weekend in Vegas?

Re:Administration

[Grishnakh]

Actually, it should, if you go by what the Parties say. Democrats have long been known as "tax and spend"; they're famous for wanting big government programs. Of course, it's still possible to have a balanced budget by simply raising taxes to pay for this.

But the Republicans have long painted themselves as "fiscally responsible", "small government", "low taxes", etc. However, the 8 years of Bush have shown us that that's a lie: when the Republicans were in control, we got BIGGER government, and ridiculous deficit spending (not fiscally responsible).

So what it boils down to is that the Republicans, by their actions, have proven that they firmly believe in deficit spending, that we can borrow an endless amount of money for whatever our government wants to do. So yes, party allegiance makes a difference: if they're Republicans, they simply don't believe in following a budget.

Re:Administration

[MindStalker]

Really, the Internet, many of medical technologies, satellite communication, etc etc etc. Would not exist had it not been for initial government research. Yet trillions of dollars are made each year do to these technologies. Name me one US tech boom that did not have its start due to government provided research or infrastructure (and yes the industrial revolution was dependent upon the railroads, which were dependent upon government land and protection.)
Even I disagree if the government should have provided these levels of protection, maybe things would be better if they had developed naturally, maybe not... But government has had a HUGE impact.

Re:Administration

[CrimsonAvenger]

clinton had the budget balanced and in a yearly surplus by the end of his two terms

Oddly enough, the National Debt increased every year of Clinton's terms of office.

Strange that he could manage a "balanced budget" while the National Debt increased, isn't it?

Note, for the record, that the National Debt increased by over 28% during Clinton's terms. And by about $150 billion during the two years he supposedly had a "balanced budget".

Note further that Obama's planned 2010 budget has a deficit larger than the increase in national debt during Clinton's two terms. And that this doesn't include the stimulus spending, which is a whole 'nuther pile of money.

Re:Administration

[plasmacutter]

The problem isn't science R&D, it's taking money from other worthwhile and productive investments in order to create an appearance

you mean like the manattan project? the apollo project? Nasa?

practically everything that makes our modern life modern stemmed from research in government labs, and at least 50%+ from the space program.

Are you going to tell me "girls gone wild" is worthwhile and productive? because a lot of money goes into making those vids and the commercials for them. How about all the R&D being put into more efficiently off-shoring exceedingly higher skilled jobs?

Economics does not have a "goal" of efficiency any more than nuclear physics has a "goal" of producing the biggest, most powerful bomb possible. It needs to be leveraged to the benefit of humanity.

Re:Administration

[daveime]

US R&D only seems to make money for China these days

Re:Administration

[amRadioHed]

And by the way, most conservatives were unhappy with George W. Bush's spending.

Then why did they reelect him in 2004?

Re:Administration

[brkello]

The spending is to avoid going in to a depression. Both liberal and conservative economists agree that spending is how to avoid that. But I understand how that would scare the living crap out of Libertarian. Is it the right thing to do? I'm not sure, but I am willing to give the economists the benefit of the doubt for a few years. Besides, it isn't like we are blowing money on an illegal war. We are spending money on our own country. So yeah, we are spending a lot, but we are spending it on us, not the middle east.

Re:Administration

[SydShamino]

Clinton, though, was helped by the dot-com boom, which was entirely NOT his doing (it's one of those things that just evolved, IMO, and Clinton was in office at the right time)

Yeah, it was really more his vice-president's doing, back in the 1980s.

Re:Administration

[mcrbids]

Seeing as the government does not make a damn thing, the only way they're getting that money is from taxes. Either by increasing our taxes now, or by increasing taxes on future generations.

I see idiocy like this is rampant in the USA.

They don't make a damn thing? You mean, like the roads that you drove on the way to work? Or the legal system that protects you? Or the police that jail the bad guy who didn't carjack you today on the way to work? Or the licensing policies for the radio station that you listened to on the way to work? What about the 13 years of education that you got so that you could LAND the job that you went to this morning? Or the excellent college system that you went to if you are a "white collar" worker?

In the United States, government is so pervasive and so good at enabling the creation of wealth that many members of the population don't bother to think about it, and rail on it like it's some parasite. "I don't need no damned gubbmint!" But the truth is that every single American benefits from almost half a MILLION dollars in embedded infrastructure: roads, schools, libraries, jails, courthouses, telephone/telecommunications, power etc.

Is it just ignorance that makes people treat their gift of such incredible wealth so poorly? It's really sad, too, because if we don't properly understand and support the true role of our government, we'll fail to keep it and then we all lose. And we *ARE* losing: education is chronically underfunded and new student test scores are abysmal, with the result being that we jail a higher percentage of our population than any other "first world" country.

Rather than develop a sane approach to the Internet as public infrastructure, we've instead relied on private enterprise to elevate our status from first to near last among industrialized nations in broadband penetration.

Welcome to life without effective govt!

Re:Administration

[TheSync]

We are dangerously close to the point that the rest of the world will say enough is enough and stop buying our debt.

[citation needed]

Speaking on the sidelines of an Asian central bankers' meeting in February, Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of China's central bank, asked: "is it time for China to consider using the reserves somewhere else, instead of concentrating too much on the United States?"

China Daily article here.

Re:Administration

[KermodeBear]

China worried about safety of U.S. debt. As of January 2009, China is the owner of the largest share of our debt, if Wikipedia is to be believed. I didn't look for articles on other countries; I'm sure you can find some on your own.

Re:Administration

[interkin3tic]

Are you going to tell me "girls gone wild" is worthwhile and productive?

Only the first few minutes, then it gets boring and annoying, plus you question whether it's normal to become bored with boobs so quickly.

But wait...

[ivan256]

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.

Re:But wait...

[zifr]

You mean like Merck? I agree, we can't trust them. http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/25/1626200&from=rss

Re:But wait...

[mooingyak]

Gov can do R&D into things like cheap medicine made from easily found natural ingredients and things like that. Stuff that has tremendous use but little in the way of profit margin.

Even if a company like Merck were 100% ethically run they wouldn't do this sort of stuff because there is no profit margin.

Re:But wait...

[MightyYar]

I think it's pretty clear that some funding will not occur without government backing.

For instance, projects where the potential payoff is greater than 5-10 years out (fusion?). Drugs that wouldn't be terribly profitable. Drugs that might be profitable, but no more so than existing inferior products (influenza vaccine?). Space exploration. Fundamental physics research requiring facilities costing billions of dollars.

I think you definitely need to be careful not to tread on the generally more-efficient private sector, but there are plenty of areas not being funded sufficiently right now.

Do want

[the4thdimension]

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.

Re:Do want

[Jeremi]

The need to find newer, faster, and more efficient ways to kill people has always been a phenomenal "mother of invention"

All very true, largely because the military has always had an extremely large budget with which to fund research related to its goals.

Now, imagine what our scientists and engineers could do with that same budget, but also with a directive to use it in the areas that will best help our country. I think we would likely get an even better return on our investment if we were actually trying for those benefits, as opposed to just developing weapons and occasionally finding that the same research happens to have constructive uses as well.

Re:What about animal hybrids in Louisiana?

[cayenne8]

I dunno, in light of everything going on, I'd think the #1 thing they'd want to concentrate on, is how to in fact, make money grow on trees!!

Otherwise, I just dunno how we're gonna pay for everything here in the very recent past.

sincerely hope..

[EvilToiletPaper]

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.

Well - Joe Dumbass will object

[spineboy]

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.

Re:Well - Joe Dumbass will object

[MightyYar]

stop portraying scientists/engineers/academics as nerds or evil.

You mean lie? :)

Seriously, we are pretty nerdy.

Re:Well - Joe Dumbass will object

[brian0918]

The problem isn't so much the portrayal of scientists as nerdy. The problem is that such a portrayal is considered derogatory or negative. We really despise the men of ideas in this county. Smart, successful people are seen as slaves to the public's interests - what they produce is nice, but if they benefit from their ingenuity, to hell with them.

Re:Well - Joe Dumbass will object

[spun]

We despise intellectuals. We kiss the feet of 'smart, successful people' like captains of industry and Wall street bankers. And we see ourselves as slaves to their interests,thus all of the 'tea-party' fools who will be getting tax cuts protesting on behalf of the poor beleaguered CEOs who will see their taxes increase.

No, it is the scientist, who does NOT generally benefit much from their own ingenuity, that we distrust.

The problem with basic scientific research is that, more often than not, it will be worthless for decades. No one wants to fund a gamble that might, if we are lucky, pay off in 30-40 years. Thus, basic scientific research is a kind of externality, a public good, and the free market is incapable of allotting the optimal amount of funding for public goods such as transportation, public education, and public health. That is econ 101.

Re:Well - Joe Dumbass will object

[gnick]

That's it. The next time somebody calls me evil, I'm going to destroy their house with my weather machine and send my droid army after their loved ones. That'll teach then to describe engineers as evil nerds.

Re:Well - Joe Dumbass will object

[spun]

Right on, libertarian brother! We should do the same for roads, sewer systems, public schools, police, fire departments, and the armed forces. Enough with this damned socialism!

Right?

Re:Well - Joe Dumbass will object

[Chyeld]

You'd really get along with John Galt, I think.

In all seriousness though, part of this is over compensation on the part of Joe Six Pack. Smart people are threatening because they are smart; therefore, make them seem less so by over emphasizing parts of them that aren't as attractive as others.

It's not as if the 'nerdy' qualities of most of us are actually qualities unique to anyone. We may as a group normally indulges in different flavors of these things, but they aren't that different from anyone else.

Our obsessions are just as rational (or irrational) as the next person, our quirks just as endearing (or annoying) as those of anyone else. It's simply that we have someone pointing at them and going "Oh! Look at him, isn't he goofy because of that."

Think Trekkies are scary? Try people who run fantasy sport leagues.

Think LARPers are dorks? Take a look at the more extreme sports fans out there and their attire (or lack of it).

Think computer geeks are weird for wasting weekends playing with Linux or building their own computers? Who would spend a perfectly good weekend fiddling with a car that already works for performance you'll never realistically use?

Anime freaks got you shaking your head? Next time American Idol has tryouts in your area take a look at who shows up.

Re:So...

[LotsOfPhil]

...how much were we spending before? This doesn't seem like a tremendously large number.

2.6% The EU's goal is 3%, too.

Re:What about animal hybrids in Louisiana?

[ushering05401]

I would like to think they are making this decision because someone finally realized that money doesn't actually grow on trees.

What a way to flush 3% of GDP ...

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:What about animal hybrids in Louisiana?

[Applekid]

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.

That's no way to run a Civilzation

[rev_sanchez]

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.

Re:That's no way to run a Civilzation

[Dachannien]

Actually, we already have infantry and artillery. Obama just wants to dump a bunch of money into researching Future Tech to run up the score. So boring... just build the damn ship to Alpha Centauri already so you can win and start a new game.

Re:Sez who?

[Anonymous Coward]

no.

Corporations only research things that will potentially make them money. Therefore, some things, like rare diseases, will never be researched. Individuals in academics will research it, but they need grant money in order to do so.

Re:In other words...

[oneirophrenos]

In other words, our children and grandchildren should pay for technological advances that make our lives easier.

More like their lives easier. Research is slow process - it takes years, maybe decades for an idea to progress from the sketching board to store shelves.

Re:Sez who?

[neuromanc3r]

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?

Because individuals and business don't really have any reason (or the means) to do a lot of basic research. Think of CERN or the Manhattan Project. Do you think those kind of research would be done if it wasn't paid for by the government?

Re:Wrong

[ShadowRangerRIT]

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?

If I pay for this research, then everyone gets the benefits. If someone else pays for it, then everyone still gets the benefits. But what if everyone waits for someone else to pay for it?

Re:Sez who?

[Etrias]

Seeing you partially brought this up, let's take the drug companies. Currently, their strategy is to create the same drug which is coming out of patent protection and can start being made by generics, tweak the formula slightly, whip up an ad campaign and start pushing the drug on doctors to prescribe this so-called "new and better" drug over the generic drug you can get for 1/10th the cost. Rinse and repeat. They already have their money tree and it's not doing us a fat-lot of good.

Honestly, I wish we could write the whole profit motive out of research and development. We might actually get somewhere without having to come up with profit to justify it's existence.

Re:Sez who?

[deadboy2000]

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?

?

Well, "individuals and business" seem to think that Baconnaise and Chocolate Chip Pancakes & Sausage on a Stick are the best way to spend R&D money, so . . . no.

If he wants to do some good for research

[Jane Q. Public]

... 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.

Re:3% if GDP for 480,000 people?

[Rob the Bold]

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.

That would explain why all the kids these days want to grow up to be a wealthy scientist, rather than a pro athlete, rapper, or movie star. Stupid science, stealing our best minds!

Re:What about animal hybrids in Louisiana?

[larry bagina]

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.

Science makes us great.

[MikeFM]

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.

Re:Science makes us great.

[daveime]

Unfortunately, the other 3 pillars were the Banking, Insurance and Automobile industries.

No more small businesses? Don't think so.

[slashbart]

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.

Re:No more small businesses? Don't think so.

[afidel]

From the numbers a quick google search brought up the Netherlans has ~60% of employment from small and medium businesses, in the US it's closer to 50% and the definition of SME's is slightly larger in the US with a cap at 500 employees versus 100 in the Netherlands.

Re:No more small businesses? Don't think so.

[im_thatoneguy]

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.

Re:Tax Nonsense

[Vancorps]

While I agree spending is still out of control how do you figure that this administration spent double what the previous administration spent? Are you under the impression the 700 billion in bail-out money passed under Bush is somehow spent by the current administration? Besides that the rest only seems to be small increases in spending in a lot of areas that would make sense if we could actually afford it.

Re:Tax Nonsense

[Vancorps]

The whole time I was watching Obama's speech talking about getting people to lend money again I kept shouting at the TV that more credit doesn't mean anything without more capital to back it up but that basic idea seems lost in Washington. Bush obviously didn't understand and Obama doesn't seem to either. At least I can agree with what Obama wants to spend money on even though I think the timing is poor because of the bad situation he inherited from Bush.

Re:Tea parties? Are you kidding?

[PJ1216]

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.