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Ron Paul Suggests Axing 5 U.S. Federal Departments (and Budgets)

Posted by timothy on from the sounds-pretty-good-to-me dept.

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."

25 of 2,247 comments (clear)

  1. I like his IRS plan! by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 5, Funny

    I like his IRS plan!

    1. Re:I like his IRS plan! by MyFirstNameIsPaul · · Score: 5, Informative

      For further reading on his plan to see what else he cuts, here it is. [pdf]

      --

      I once took an excursion to Reddit, and later HN. Unlimited up/down voting sucks when dealing with a hive-mind.

    2. Re:I like his IRS plan! by mspohr · · Score: 5, Interesting
      There was no semiconductor and computer system market until the defense department made one by financing research and buying the output. Ever heard of Fairchild semiconductor? They are one of the foundations of the the semiconductor industry and held most of the early patents on semiconductors. They wouldn't have existed without government paying for the research and buying their early products. HP, Apple and the rest came later.

      You can keep dreaming your fantasy that Rockefeller was a altruistic philanthropist if you want but you really should do some actual reading on the subject.

      Like all corporations, the automobile companies lobbied government at all levels to build infrastructure that was too expensive for them to build but which would make their products more desirable to purchase. That's the way the system works. Without government investment, their business would be quite different. Perhaps they would have invested more in floating cars that could cross rivers without bridges.

      --
      I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
  2. all the better to rebuild plantation economies by swschrad · · Score: 5, Insightful

    if folks don't know anything, it can't hurt them, right?

    --
    if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
  3. In other words, we should give up. by Kenja · · Score: 5, Insightful

    No more energy research, no more parks, no more public education, no more low income housing, no more roads & bridges. What a grand utopia he has planned for us.

    --

    "Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
    1. Re:In other words, we should give up. by jittles · · Score: 5, Informative

      No more weather forecasting either. It's not just the US that depends on NOAA's National Hurricane Center. Many Caribbean countries that would be hard pressed to track hurricanes depend on this service.

    2. Re:In other words, we should give up. by Qzukk · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Are you saying that all of these things are impossible without the Federal Government paying for them?

      Yes. You can pretend that capitalism can provide exactly what the government provides now, but capitalism cannot magically make non-profitable things profitable. If it isn't profitable, it won't happen.

      --
      If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
    3. Re:In other words, we should give up. by MightyYar · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Corporations are a creation of the government. They are like copyrights and patents - they only exist in law. Separating the two is impossible.

      The conversation would be much more constructive if the conversation were: "What do we want corporations to do/be?"

      But then we wouldn't be able to join the red team or the blue team.

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    4. Re:In other words, we should give up. by chrb · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Put in standardized units:
      • Energy Department's $5-billion Office of Science = 2.5 days of the military
      • $4.5-billion National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration = 2.25 days of the military
      • $750-million National Institute of Standards and Technology = 9 hours of the military
      • $1.1-billion U.S. Geological Survey = 13 hours of the military

      (Based on Forbe's estimate of the cost of being U.S. military policy being $2 billion per day If you want units solely in terms of the war in Afghanistan, that figure is $300 million per day. Adjust for other wars etc. War: it isn't cheap.)

      I wonder why Ron Paul doesn't talk about slashing the military budget, it would appear the potential savings are enormous?

    5. Re:In other words, we should give up. by boristdog · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I'm saying that local entities are only responsible to their local constituents. If a local entity is 100% in charge, they can let their section of the road go 100% to ruin if they don't want it there. And everyone else can just go suck eggs because anything else would be socialism!

      My county has about 25 miles of an interstate through the northern section where almost NO ONE in the county lives. Maybe 1% of the county population regularly uses that road. If the county residents were suddenly tasked with the cost of the maintenance on that section of interstate our county taxes would probably double. Do you think most people in the county would vote for that? Nope, hardly any of us ever use that road. Goodbye freeway system.

    6. Re:In other words, we should give up. by siride · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The spending problem isn't NOAA or NIST, it's "entitlements" and defense. TFA mentions NOAA's $4.5 billion budget. For the services it provides, that's a pretty damn good bang for your buck. Axing NOAA would do about nothing for the national debt, but would cost us dearly in terms of weather data and services. You could axe every single non-defense discretionary spending agency and still end up with a decent deficit. Why go after the parts of the government that actually do a good job and provide useful services? What a fucking dumb idea. Seriously.

    7. Re:In other words, we should give up. by sarhjinian · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Butbutbut, all the little things add up! (Yes, they do. To a rounding error in the budgets of Defense or Medicare/Medicaid).

      So, if this privatization stuff is such hot shit, let's privatize the military as well. I'm sure that'll work out just fine! I mean, if it's evil socialism to heal, feed and clothe people, it must be worse to publicly fund killing them, right?

      Hell, on a related (hypocritical) note, Ron Paul, bastion of freedom, independence and libertarian wankery, seems to have no problem shilling for Federal public funds to deal with coastal damage in his own district. I'm sure, though, that he'd refuse funds to keep rising coastal waters from washing Galevston out to sea.

      Typical libertarian nonsense: it's all waste and graft, unless it's my pet interest, then it's an essential part of the social contract. It's a movement that's just as delusional as Communism.

      --
      --srj/mmv
    8. Re:In other words, we should give up. by DragonWriter · · Score: 5, Informative

      But corporations do exist without any need for government.

      False.

      I can think of one that has been around for a very long time, is very well managed and highly profitable. Millions of dollars worth of goods and services move through this organization every year, and many of the consumers of the products would not have access to these products without this organization. The Mafia.

      The Mafia is not a corporation. A corporation is defined as an entity with separate legal personality from its individual participants. It is purely a creation of law; the Mafia is just a collective label given to a number of different groups of people.

      When legal action is taken against the Mafia, its not in the form of "The People of the State of New York v. La Cosa Nostra, Inc."; its individual actions against individual members because the Mafia isn't a corporation and therefore doesn't have distinct legal personality.

      Sure, if you redefine corporation to just mean "group of people", a corporation wouldn't require government, just like if you redefine "water" to mean "any compound containing hydrogen" then water wouldn't require oxygen atoms. But words have meanings.

  4. How about... by i.r.id10t · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Getting rid of the BATFE and the TSA instead?

    --
    Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
  5. Simple solution by i+kan+reed · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "For every complex problem, there is an answer that is clear, simple--and wrong."
    --H.L. Mencken

  6. Ron Paul... by bmo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    is a nutjob.

    I had a long dissertation thought out, but man, this shit just boggles my mind. NOAA? Is he kidding? I'm sure all of you remember (probably not, but I'm giving the benefit of the doubt) the fact that he said that "Hurr, Galveston didn't have anyone to bail them out during their hurricane" totally forgetting how many people /died/ because of no hurricane warning and forecasting.

    The next time there's a hurricane coming up Galveston Bay, I want Ron Paul to be out in the middle of it. Outside. Naked.

    --
    BMO

  7. So, he wants a 19th Century economy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Jeez. Because deregulating the financial sector has worked soooooo very well.

  8. Re:Which is what, exactly? by MightyMartian · · Score: 5, Informative

    You are aware, I trust, that the USGS is responsible for a large number of monitoring programs. Basically, killing it would essentially leave the West Coast of the United States without tsunami, earthquake or volcano alerts. I'm sure the people that live along that very geologically active strip of turf will be happy to know that Ron Paul considers them essentially expendable in his quest for ideological purity.

    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  9. He's living a fantasy by FyberOptic · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That's the thing about Ron Paul. He makes a few good points once in a while, but he's such an extremist that he just wants to wildly slash everything in government with a machete. That's not the solution to anything. Most of the organizations he wants to destroy actually do good things and serve important roles, but may need to simply be restructured to better serve those roles instead of just throwing money at them in their current form. And that's not to mention the literally thousands of jobs he would be cutting to serve his agenda.

    Ron Paul's mind is still a hundred years in the past. He's regularly citing things from far back in the country's history. Things that worked back then won't work today. Society's complexities and modernizations require some degree of management or oversight. Paul doesn't see that because all he can see is the fantasy of small government he envisions of yesteryear.

    The USA isn't a western. Let's stop trying to treat it like one.

  10. This is phenomenally dumb by sean.peters · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You do realize, right, that all those private companies who are "more apt at the weather stuff" are doing it based on... weather data that they get for free from NOAA, right? Jesus, I wish the "seasteading" movement would get going, so we could export all our libertarians.

  11. Re:Which is what, exactly? by NeutronCowboy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Because North Dakota benefits from having a California that doesn't get devastated by tsunamis or earthquakes. The same way that the world benefited from Japan not being completely flooded by a Tsunami.

    --
    Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
  12. Re:Which is what, exactly? by tbannist · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm sure the people that live along that very geologically active strip of turf will be happy to know that Ron Paul considers them essentially expendable in his quest for ideological purity.

    That is simply untrue and completely preposterous. To make such baseless accusations, you should be ashamed of yourself. We all know that Ron Paul considers everyone to be expendable in his quest for ideological purity.

    --
    Fanatically anti-fanatical
  13. Re:Which is what, exactly? by mr1911 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You just made a great argument for eliminating the federal government agencies that redistribute wealth amongst the states.

    --
    This post comes with a double-your-money-back guarantee!
    Any offense taken to this post is at your sole discretion.
  14. Get the overview from his website by trevelyon · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://www.ronpaul2012.com/2011/10/17/ron-paul-announces-ambitious-%E2%80%98plan-to-restore-america%E2%80%99/

    Above is the link to his website directly. Some notable tidbits that the article (along with some slashdot commenters) seemed to miss:

    "Cuts of this scale will also be accomplished by a Paul Presidency abolishing the Transportation Security Administration and returning responsibility for security to private property owners, abolishing corporate subsidies, stopping foreign aid, ending foreign wars, and returning most other spending to 2006 levels."

    Full plan is here: http://ronpaul2012.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=5fe6ba5e2c7e9376850ed45ac&id=bfc0992023&e=8c0ac983f9

    So as part of this plan he will get rid of:
    -Entire TSA
    -Corporate (including Oil) subsidies
    -End the wars (likely the largest single current expenditure/drain on the economy)
    -End foreign aid (which I suspect will keep the U.S. out of more wars and significantly reduce the terror threat to the U.S.)
    -15% of military spending (on top of complete ending of war spending)
    -Keeps Social Security and Veteran care in place but allows young people to opt out of social security (basically, ending the Ponzi scheme and recognising the debt owed from it).

    I will agree that some things he wishes to cut are not things I would choose to get rid of BUT can anyone point out a single other candidate that has a plan in plain, simple terms like his to actually do something? I sure haven't seen anything like this from other candidates. Then again I feel they are all talk. Real problem solvers would have at least a moderately detailed plan up on their website with rough numbers on how to accomplish things. If anyone finds such from other candidates please post in reply. I'd be very interested in seeing other plans even at as high level as this one is.

    The plan is extreme but note that even with everything he is removing and reducing it only ends the DEFICIT (i.e. we stop borrowing more) by year three. Most people seem to not realise or accept how much pain the U.S. will have to endure to climb out from the mountain of debt without defaulting. Much like those that make $40,000 and have $40,000 in credit card debt it's a long suffering process. Much more borrowing at the current rate and defaulting on debt is almost an assured result (hence the lowering of the U.S. credit rating). I should point out European nations, most local governments, etc are all in the same situation. Borrowing to get luxuries you can't afford is endemic in the western mentality currently.

    I suspect this will also reduce the corruption considerably since there will be many fewer lucrative grants to bribe senators and congressmen to get. That is, if it passes at all. You'll likely need to toss the bulk of republicans AND democrats out to get anything like this through since it will dismantle many of the incentives for funnelling money to them.

  15. Re:Which is what, exactly? by Thuktun · · Score: 5, Informative

    Why should the people of North Dakota pay for tsunami monitoring for California? If the west coast wants earth quake and tsunami warning, they can pay for it.

    North Dakota is not geologically inert. http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/states/events/1909_05_16.php

    He also wants to axe NOAA, of which the National Weather Service is a part, which tracks weather events like thunderstorms and blizzards that affect North Dakota.

    Besides, your callous attitude would seem to lead to something like this:
    "Why should I have to do anything to help anyone? Screw 'em." (later) "Eeek, I'm in trouble, why won't someone help me?!"