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Ron Paul Suggests Axing 5 U.S. Federal Departments (and Budgets)
sciencehabit writes with this selection from Science: "Presidential hopeful Ron Paul's new proposal to slash federal spending would wipe out large chunks of the government's research portfolio. The congressman from Texas and Republican candidate has unveiled a budget plan to reduce the deficit that would eliminate five federal departments: Energy, Commerce, Interior, Education, and Housing and Urban Development. In one fell swoop, such a step would erase, among other programs, the Energy Department's $5-billion Office of Science, the $4.5-billion National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the $750-million National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the $1.1-billion U.S. Geological Survey."
Ron Paul is about less government, so he is realigning money from the government to... I'm not sure, health care?
Taxpayers and US debt holders.
He is assuming the slack will be picked up by corporate America and independent agencies
I'd say that's a reasonable assumption to make.
I'd also be interested in seeing department benchmarks to see if these departments are performing as they should, ex. for the longest time NASA was not.
Depends on the benchmark. There's "All government spending is evil!" benchmark, and the "Everytime government spends a billion dollars, an angel gets its wings!" benchmark, which would yield strictly opposite results.
You missed the whole point. There was no government research involved in "inventing" the Internet. It was invented by an academic, on his own time, for his own purposes. The government just "borrowed" it later.