Science Programs Hit Hard By Proposed Budget

BJ_Covert_Action writes "The House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations has released a list of proposed spending cuts for the US Federal Government. The proposed cuts include reductions in spending on many science organizations and funds such as NASA, NOAA, nuclear energy research, fossil fuel energy research, clean coal research, the CDC, the NIH, and numerous EPA programs. There are also quite a few cuts proposed on domestic services, such as Americorps and high speed rail research. The House Appropriations Chairman, Hal Rogers, acknowledges that the cuts go deep, and would hurt every district across the country. But they are still deemed necessary to rein in Congressional spending. Notoriously absent from the proposed budget cuts are two of the largest spending sinks in the federal budget: the Department of Defense and Social Security."

Comments

Is anybody really surprised?

[hedwards]

The DoD is the sacred cow to end all sacred cows, the only way it's ever going to get budget cut is if there is nothing else left to cut.

Re:Is anybody really surprised?

[h4rr4r]

Invading multiple nations at a time is not Constitutionally mandated either. If you want cuts to entitlement be prepared to accept cuts to your sacred cow as well.

Re:Is anybody really surprised?

[eln]

There's no way to get back to running surpluses (and therefore starting to actually pay down the debt) without massive cuts in all of the big three (social security, medicare, and defense). All of these are arguably Constitutionally mandated functions (providing for the common defense and the general welfare), but the Constitution doesn't say anywhere that we have to fund them to the level that we do. The Constitution doesn't say we have to keep the retirement age at 62 or cap SS contributions above a certain income level, and it doesn't say we have to fund a military at more than 6 times the level of China, who has the second highest military expenditure.

Whenever someone talks about cutting defense, the right tries to redirect the conversation over to entitlement programs. Whenever someone talks about entitlement programs, the left tries to redirect the conversation over to defense. Meanwhile, the situation continues to get more dire, and both sides pass tax cuts to placate the masses, and that makes the situation even worse.

The harsh reality is we can no longer afford to provide entitlements at the level we have been in the past, AND we can no longer afford to support such a ludicrous level of military spending. Until our Congresspeople are willing to accept and act on that fact, and until the voters are willing to reward them instead of crucifying them for making the necessary budget cuts, we will continue to slide down into insolvency.

Re:Is anybody really surprised?

[Pinky's Brain]

You could increase taxes.

Re:Is anybody really surprised?

[Solandri]

Actually, Defense spending is one of the few pieces of government spending which has been trending downward. It picked up again after 9/11, but is still near historical lows. The outrage over the amount of military spending made sense back in the 1960s - if we were at Vietnam War-era spending levels today, the Defense budget would be around $1.2 trillion instead of only $660 billion. Our modern levels of defense spending are only slightly above the world's average if you factor in Japan's GDP (we are obligated by the peace treaty ending WWII to provide for Japan's national defense - a treaty I agree is long overdue for renegotiation). People keep dragging it up sometimes not adjusting for inflation, and sometimes adjusting for inflation but not for economic and population growth. If you compare defense spending as a percentage of GDP, it was on a clear downward trend prior to 9/11 unlike just about every other part of the budget.

It's the social programs (primarily Medicare/Medicaid) which are ballooning out of control and busting the budget. Those are the sacred cows we need to sacrifice (or at least pass some common sense reforms) if we want to get the budget under control.

And another stat I'm sure will throw people here for a loop. It was actually George W. Bush who increased non-DoD science spending the most of modern Presidents (though merely restoring it to 1980s levels as % of GDP).

Re:Is anybody really surprised?

[Moryath]

"The Congress really wanked away their rights and obligations on the Iraq war."

You could argue that the moment we became involved in the UN and started sending "peacekeeping troops" around the world, we started letting someone other than Congress decide where our troops were going. And then we started getting into "police action" after "police action"... Go back to 1951, long before you were born, and get an education on the silliness of Korea being a "police action" rather than an actual war from the perspective of the US and UN.

And then, of course, the failure to actually prosecute Korea as a real war is part and parcel of the ludicrous situation with mainland Red China today - our largest failure, to prevent the growth of the cancerous regime currently set up in Beijing.

Re:Is anybody really surprised?

[lorenlal]

The preamble, while making a catchy song, doesn't actually lay out what any of the rules associated are with the goals. It's the abstract. The articles and amendments are where the debates and wrangling all happen, and where they should happen. Promoting the general welfare is an intentionally vague term to let everyone know that the document has really good intentions. Which I think is great and something that many of us forget today.

The rest of the document does its darnedest to not be vague, and the authors did their best to be as clear as possible. It is my humble opinion that the federal government did grow, over the years, into an organization that holds much more power than the founding fathers desired. I don't believe that handouts were/are part of the domain of the federal government, but rather of the states. The 10th amendment grants the states the powers not granted to the federal government. They have every right to give as many handouts as they can afford. I know how naive that sounds, and I'm sorry. I see how it is, and I understand that it is very difficult to undo over 200 years of scope creep.

As for the common defense: See Article I, Section 8 for the legislative power involving the military. Article II, Section 2 is the Commander in Chief clause that grants him/her the power to command the military.

So yea, the preamble is a nice pre-summary, but the actual jurisdiction and power lies in the articles and amendments.

Re:Is anybody really surprised?

[dgatwood]

There's no way to get back to running surpluses (and therefore starting to actually pay down the debt) without massive cuts in all of the big three (social security, medicare, and defense).

That's bullshit, and you should know it. We, as workers, pay into both Medicare and Social Security as a separate FICA tax on our wages. It's essentially a public insurance offering, not a government handout. We're paying for it directly, and if the government cuts it, then those of us paying in now are not going to get what we paid for. That's fraud, pure and simple.

If either program is going over budget, that is happening for one of two reasons:

• The Medicare and Social Security caps and/or rates are set too low.
• The government is stealing money to pay for other things.

Period. There is no good reason for either of those programs to be seen as a drain on our government's resources. Medicare and Social Security are basically separate from the federal budget. So if a politician claims that Medicare and Social Security are the reason our government is bleeding red, they're just trying to trick people into giving up social programs so that they can spend that money on more black ops and other crap that this country doesn't really need.

I challenge any of the politicians making such ludicrous claims to provide proof to the contrary.

Hey Congress!

[idontgno]

To paraphrase, "If you think knowledge is expensive, try ignorance!"

Re:Hey Congress!

[magsol]

That's not a bad argument, but I have to point out what I perceive to be a poor analogy: you're absolutely correct regarding your roofing that, while it's definitely straddling the border between "useful" and "really really useful", it's not nearly as "critical" as, say, mortgage and food. However, the roofing is completely independent from your stream of income; having your current roof vs redoing the roof will not alter your pay grade one cent. On the other hand, investing in these scientific programs could (and probably will) stimulate the economy in a feed-forward loop of its own. The only issue with that plan is that this science/education funding is one of the longest-term goals out there: we probably wouldn't see the benefits of it for at least a decade or two, if not more. But by laying the groundwork now, we'd be much more prepared to make the big breakthroughs when our technology is ready. The roofing is just that, and nothing more. Investment in these long-term goals yield far more than just their up-front cost.

ideology and smarts

[Black Parrot]

Some of that is obviously ideological (EPA, Clean *, etc.), but the rest is just stupid.

In addition to the long-term hazards of cutting back science (and education), austerity programs are exactly what government's *shouldnt* do when the economy sags. Every dollar they cut from a program is a dollar someone isn't going to be spending next year, so tax revenues will drop even further.

A government with any sense would establish a sustainable cost of operations, borrow money when times are bad, and pay off the loans when times are good.

Unfortunately, a republic (representative democracy) tends to become a 'politicianocracy', and politicians buy votes by spending money on stuff their supporters want. So nobody wants to pay down debt when times are good; they just want to take the opportunity to spend more.

Re:its not the money

[Albanach]

but it is not the media good science grows on.

Yes, when those post-docs lose their research funding they'll just keep researching in their garage at their own expense. There they will join the mass ranks of other volunteer scientists making new and groundbreaking discoveries every day.

We're talking about cutting well over $5 billion from science spending. Anyone that wants to pretend that won't destroy much of 'the media good science grows on' is delusional.

Re:For reasons that are obvious

[cayenne8]

"Unfortunately, the cuts would probably trickle down to hurt the lowliest people involved, probably "the troops", though it really needn't. I'm sure there's a lot of fat that could be cut out of the defense budget."

Well, we could start by closing the majority of our bases around the world. I mean, do we really need such a presence in Europe? I'm not seriously worried about the Germans taking over again, nor of the Soviet Union crossing through Berlin.

Heck..we could still keep military superiority...but quit trying to defend the rest of the free world.

Hmm...hell, one of the reasons so many of the countries in the EU can have all that 'free healthcare' and other entitlements, is because they don't have to pay much for their military defense...the US does.

We should pull out of all those countries...and let them worry about defending themselves. I'm not just picking on Europe...but pretty much all of our bases that really aren't that strategic to the US.

I'd think that would take a healthy chunk out of defense spending?

Re:Medicare bigger than DoD, Social Security close

[lgw]

That's the sales pitch friend. That's not the reality - if you're young you're never getting that money back (and chances are you don't expect to). The SS system is and was designed to be a direct transfer of income from the young to the old. Not in and of itself a terrible idea, but due to changes in life expectancy and demographics it just doesn't work any more. We need to change to a program that does.

Look at the budget in terms of revenue (where 100 is total federal revenue):

100 - Money given to the old and poor (SS, medi*, federal pensions, welfare)
30 - defense
10 - income on the debt
20 - everything else

We need to cut spending across the board by almost half to get to where we're repaying the debt. Everthing has to be cut, and cut by nearly half. Cutting science and other useful programs is barely going to make an impact, but it's a needed prerequisite to cutting retirement programs. People aren't going to accept that they aren't going to get their "entitlement" before it's clear that everyone everywhere is sharing the pain, with no exemptions or sacred cows.

But there's no other option. We're spending 160% of what we take in, and that's just insane.

Re:For reasons that are obvious

[Johnny5000]

Hmm...hell, one of the reasons so many of the countries in the EU can have all that 'free healthcare' and other entitlements, is because they don't have to pay much for their military defense...the US does.

That may be part of it, but the US still pays vast amounts of money for health care... it's just going to the insurance companies via premiums instead of the government via taxes.

DoD cuts need to be part of the solution

[cje]

Part of the problem is that anybody who proposes DoD cuts is immediately labeled a dangerous agitator who wants to embolden our enemies and put American lives at risk. There's a large and well-funded industry that's dedicated to perpetuating this myth, and they're frighteningly effective at their job. If we're to ever get the deficit situation under control, it will require a certain degree of maturity from the electorate -- along with the realization that there's enough pork in the defense budget to make a bacon replica of the Hoover Dam.

We also need a certain degree of maturity and a solidly-grounded perspective on taxes, as well -- but that's neither here nor there.

Re:Medicare bigger than DoD, Social Security close

[the eric conspiracy]

When you talk about sharing the pain, realize that part of the reason for that large deficit is the rate of taxation as a percentage of GDP is at historic lows.

Simply reverting that rate to historical averages would cut the deficit in half. In fact increasing the US tax rate to what Canadians pay would wipe out the deficit completely.

Ultimately the resolution for this is going to require both reductions in benefits as well as increases in taxes.

Anything else would not represent in sharing the pain equitably.