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Obama Budget Asks For 1% Boost In Research
sciencehabit sends this excerpt from ScienceInsider:
"One of the big three research agencies appears to be lagging behind its doubling peers in the president's 2013 budget request released this morning. The $4.9 billion budget of the Department of Energy's Office of Science would rise by 2.4%, to $5 billion. In contrast, the National Science Foundation would receive a nearly 5% boost, to $7.37 billion, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology a hike of 13%, to $860 million. These three agencies were originally singled by President George W. Bush in 2006 for a 10-year budget doubling, a promise that President Barack Obama and Congress have repeatedly endorsed despite the current tough economic times. ... Obama is
asking for a 1% increase in overall federal spending on research, to $140 billion. Within that total, the White House seeks a similar 1% hike in the $30 billion devoted to basic research."
Thanks a lot, /. And just how do you propose that I cram this datum into the politically-convenient narrative of science-hating Republicans that the internet has been spoon-feeding for years?
More energy research? But how will that impact our fossil-fuel overlords?!
On a serious note, my only real hope is that either patents won't be granted, or else they'll be granted and licensed at essentially no charge to American companies for the advances, and that companies would have to compete based on their efficiency and ability.
Of course, I'm probably living in a pipe dream.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
A good counter-offer is $0 for research. Balance the budget over 10 years if you want there to be money for your pet programs. The same counter-offer should go for every other item in the budget.
Well should it happen? The religious conservative of US will say no, but will claim "no way" with the budget deficit.
I mean we should all know by now, Ronald Reagan the last fiscal conservative died. All the political conservatives today are un-American religious-oppression right-wing-nuts.
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
And a 1% increase is actually a decrease. You have to talk in inflation-adjusted numbers for it to mean anything. That said, just maintaining the status quo is somewhat generous; we do need to back off govt. spending as the economy improves.
More energy research? But how will that impact our fossil-fuel overlords?!
Well if they would get up and suck at the teat the way the green industry is doing they would get just as much graft, er, research money.
The government SUCKS at deciding how to invest R&D money, and as noted it generally goes not to the most brilliant work but to people who made the "right" campaign contributions.
The government should if anything focus on X-Style prizes to improve some general category of thing i.e. batteries or practical means of constructing habitats on planets.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
So the federal government will subsidize the research costs of private organizations who will reap all of the profit (of commercially viable technology) while taking all of the risk while on the other side, the taxpayer will continue to subsidize politicians pet projects (Solyndra) of technology that has no commercial value. Great deal for corporations, bad deal for the consumer.
Since he knew his fellow conservatives would want to cut the research budgets, he offered up a less-than-inflationary offer for an increase. He'll likely cave on either no increase whatsoever, or a small cut.
Thanks a lot, President Lawnchair. Maybe some time in my lifetime we'll get an actual liberal in the white house (though I can't think of when that would be)?
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
More efficient spending, not more (or less) spending, please.
For the love of all that's holy - Stop this maddening, never-ending cycle of coming up with new ways to increase expenditures faster than new ways to increase revenue.
Eliminate the waste. It's the only way to move in the right direction. Give my generation hope.
This is not a problem caused by liberals or conservatives. It's a problem caused by politicians. All of them.
when pigs fly
The National Institutes of Health would also see its budget remain flat, at $30.7 billion
Thanks a lot. And for those of you who think you don't care, it's worth pointing out that NIH is the first funding agency to require publications coming from its work to be put in open-access or publicly-accessible journals. The other agencies are still allowing their work to go into paywalled journals at the time. So even if you don't agree with their mission of health research, you might want to at least take notice that they are trying to ensure that the work the taxpayer pays for is in a place where the taxpayer doesn't have to pay again to see the results.
And being as NIH grant success rate is at an all-time low (same source), the odds of more great original research coming from their effectively-reduced budget is miniscule.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
False.
In other news China's technological espionage department has just petitioned Beijing to allow them another 1% more funding to help steal the extra technology discovered from America's 1% tech research spending increase.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Balancing the budget does nothing. It's the carrot in front of the horse. We had a balanced budget a decade plus back. In less than 3 years after that, it was squashed to the level what it was a decade before. Why is it so much harder to balance the budget than to spend ourselves into oblivion? You need only look at historical economic cycles, and spending events to see that periods of debt actually move things along. Slowly, but they do.
As far as funding, sorry but research is how the US maintains anything resembling advantage over foreign companies rapidly catching up to our technology R&D envelope. There's a reason most of the industrial espionage happing to US companies is coming from the China. Easier than funding it themselves. Also, China unquestionably has rapid technology production capabilities that the US has never had, and never will.
You really want to kill the US? Halt publically funded R&D. You push it to private, which unless there is something profitable in the end, it won't be researched. Yes, general research doesn't have to be directly profitable, as it expands human knowledge of all things, leading to a wider variety of interpretation of ideas that can be made profitable in the future.
Balancing a budget? Sure. Then what, since we're 5 years behind what China, India, and Europe are doing as they leap frog us on R&D.
You can't assume that inflation is constant; in fact, in the past few years the cost of everything has pretty much stayed the same or decreased, so we very well may have had close to 0 inflation.
You are either 1) Still in your basement and you mom keeps leaving food at the door or 2) you're in jail.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Republicans love science as long as it's something they can monetize and doesn't conflict with their social agenda.
Social agendas like battling AIDS in Africa?
"President-elect Barack Obama doesn't often offer praise for President George W. Bush's foreign policy, but on Monday he offered the outgoing head of state accolades for battling AIDS in Africa. "I salute President Bush for his leadership in crafting a plan for AIDS relief in Africa and backing it up with funding dedicated to saving lives and preventing the spread of the disease," Obama said in taped remarks to the Saddleback Civil Forum on Global Health.""
http://articles.cnn.com/2008-12-01/us/world.aids.day_1_aids-relief-anti-retroviral-president-s-emergency-plan?_s=PM:US
A 5% increase, devoted mostly to energy research would make sense. Diverting all money from the Mars/Moon budget would certainly help. Near Earth orbit is research. Until we have a money-positive, energy positive use for the moon or Mars, they're hubris and nothing more.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Current politics has pushed out all rational discussion of good debt vs. bad debt. Nationally and individually we would all suffer with lower quality of life if not for good debt.
Good debt produces a return on that debt greater than the interest paid on that debt. Who here paid cash for their house, or for their education? Both are considered good debt (generally speaking) since wise purchasing using that debt results in accrued equity (the house) or increased income (education). Assuming you don't buy a McMansion at the height of the market or pay $100k for a university of phoenix degree, both debts produce value over the long run.
At the national level, research and infrastructure - even when funded by low-interest debt - produce returns far greater than the intrest paid on those loans. Infrastructure makes our economy attractive to business, and basic research gives us a technological edge in every field.
These are two areas of spending that SHOULD be funded via low interest debt, and our creditors don't seem to think that the US is in danger of default any time soon based on recent US Treasury auctions.
Bernanke has been running his press into overdrive the last few years, the M3 numbers verify it. That is inflation - expansion of the money supply. When we have inflation, the price of commodities go up, and they have quite a bit relative to previous years. That the Federal Reserve is keeping interest rates so low until at least end of 2014 means the economy is shit, don't believe Obama's lies.
I don't care who's president; I fully endorse this. If anything, they're not putting nearly enough money into these programs. This sort of thing is where our tax dollars should be doing. This and infrastructure. But I don't mean the kind of crap infrastructure programs like we've been seeing these past few years that do nothing but keep a few construction workers employed and puts money into the hands of companies that would have gotten business anyway.
What I mean are public works projects like those seen in Japan, South Korea and China; programs that have a long term positive impact but that actually make sense for the region. Of course, that pointless high speed rail that's been bandied about is not one of them. Unless we were developing our own high speed train and not just buying something overseas. We don't even have the expertise in this country to build our own high speed rail.
Absolutely money should be shifted away from defense spending, but I'd also like to see less spent on wasteful, shortsighted social programs. There are people out there who need the help, but many of these programs don't provide any long-term benefit for the country and merely increase dependency. Change the cultural mindset in this country and teach these people to fend for themselves and you'll see a much more profound improvement.
Of course, a lot of jobs have moved overseas and there's no bringing them back. The real challenge is to strike a good balance, something like Japan or Germany has managed. But I think the mindset in those cultures is quite different to what we have here in the US, at all levels. Unlike the average American workers, the lowliest employees still have a strong work ethic and take pride in what they do. And at the other extreme, upper management still has a lot of pride and maybe even nationalistic tendencies. And they still have a drive to actually make something. American management, however, seems intent on finding with quickest and easiest way to make a buck at the expense of everything else. But then, sometimes you can't blame them. I've got friends who complain that you spend several times more getting someone in the States to make something, but you don't even have a guarantee of quality.
Look at something as simple of toys. The nicest, highest quality stuff routinely comes out of Japan and Germany and often it's still made domestically. Compare that to American toys which are always made in China, usually poorly conceived and where the cost-cutting is always evident. With the vast majority of "American" products it's only a matter of time before China builds brand strong enough that they can stand on their own. At that point why bother with the middleman? The middleman being the American corporation that does nothing but own a brands, logos on the box, basically.
And that's where the fundamental problem arises. Will we be able to maximize the benefit of this investment in science if we end up offloading all of the actual design and manufacture to a foreign company? Are we just going to end up making a bunch of guys at the top even more wealthy? But then, I guess we have to start somewhere.
space programs are not terribly expensive in the big picture, and they are one of those things that have long term benefits but only if consistently funded.
Another program that needs consistent funding is healthcare for those who cannot afford it. You could save money in the short term by cutting off programs, until everyone gets sick and you end up spending more in the long run. Maintaining good health is cheap compared to curing disease.
Letting rockets and engineers rot because you were not able to produce viable long term plans is bad leadership in my opinion.
It's not about pet projects. It's about ROI. Investing aggressively in R&D, especially when the economy is stalled is not only good for economic recovery, but it helps us to create a better place to live. The return on investment is massive. Think the Internet, GPS, combustion engine, weather prediction, antibiotics...and that's just the current stuff. Wait until you see how current research get's used 5 yrs or 10 yrs out. China understands this and they will be the next Super Power if we don't keep pace with them.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
How can he say this when he is letting the powers of darkness snuff out the Mars programs at Mars so the the monies can be wasted on manned-spaceflight pork?
It's like saying, let's cut funding for the development of a self powered carriage (a car!) because we need to allocate our money towards hey and iron shoes for our horses. Cutting research is like shooting yourself in the foot - or head.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
This budget will not pass just like the others did not pass. The GOP house will not pass anything but last second extensions after Obama licks their boots. What is sad is that he is only doing 1% for show.
Screw mars. We don't have the money and if we did I'd be 150% against it! We should be working on better robotics and planetary science both which will do more faster and cheaper than pushing for a man on mars in our lifetime. Unless you build a permanent base, mars is not worth going to and even then the robots are better than humans now; in 20 years they'll be more ahead of humans. Many ignorant people think we'll colonize Mars; but that is not worth doing without a lot of progress in multiple areas-- remember on Mars in winter, the air freezes. We don't stay in Antarctica all year around yet.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Mars is dumb. We know more about Mars than we do about the ocean floor... and there is actually resources, land, water, oxygen, and food there.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Just another election year pud pulling event.
The Amundsen–Scott polar station has been manned year-long for a long time now:
http://www.southpolestation.com/trivia/wo.html
We can keep people alive in orbit, which is much harder. It's simply a matter of resource dedication.
Whether we have the money is not the right question- we definitely do, and a whole lot of ignorance is required to believe otherwise. The question is what do we expect to gain by spending the money, and how important is that compared to the things on which we are already spending money.
There is a rather large body of literature already on the dangers of GMO crops. It is well known that certain of these crops can cause dramatic resistance to evolve in both insects and in other non-crop plant species, not to mention the economic problems associated with contamination of natural seed stocks with GMO seed.
One would think after Fukushima and Chernobyl any sane person might find reason to consider being cautious about nuclear power. There is a very good chance that radioactive isotopes from Fukushima are already incorporated into your body even though the size of the leakage was relatively small.
Likewise, there is abundant evidence that eating organic food can be far healthier than eating "factory" and processed foods.
As for cell phones, lets hope you are right. Although the energy levels seem to be far too low to disrupt DNA, its still far too early for epidemiological studies of cell phone use to be likely to statistically show any subtle, but potentially harmful effects. Give it another 30 years, as was necessary for similar studies dealing with the effects of tobacco products.
There is no real equivalence here. The GOP has been far behind the democrats in promoting science. In fact republicans still like to joke about Al Gore inventing the internet, when what Gore really did was become one of the very first early champions for increasing federal funding to develop the internet beyond its DARPA roots. The fact they now use the internet to do so evidently doesn't even enter into their consciousness.
Even though Bush is history, the same GOP mindset remains. Obama proposes a 1% increase in science/research funding, which the GOP promptly and loudly aim to block. With so much money going into tax cuts for the already wealthy, funding in sciences since Reagan have gone done about 40% as a percentage of the total budget. So even this meager proposal by Obama is likely to be caught up in GOP election year politics.
Can anyone realistically argue that any of the GOP nominees now will actually increase science funding? Personally, I don't count a Moon Base as a science project, but rather a throwaway line for those eager for technological pork spending. While it might push the boundaries of technology, there would be relatively little science likely to come from it compared to investing that kind of money in pure research. For example, if that kind of money were directed at ocean studies and ocean exploration the benefits to mankind would be far, far greater, particularly since we know probably less about the oceans than we do about Mars relative to what there probably is to know given that Mars has no biosphere. Who knows, maybe ocean studies might provide a way to prevent anyone who spends to much time in space from permanently loosing visual acuity as recent studies apparently demonstrate is a serious impediment to any proposals for long-term human extraterrestrial habitation.
To make matters worse, GOP attitudes toward environmental science aren't merely anti-science. They border on on suicidal and homicidal.
What has made so many republicans who depend upon science, so unwilling to stand up to the anti-science rhetoric that seems to be the standard fair for GOP politicians these days? Is it simply because most scientists have become democrats out of necessity? This sure is a far cry from the GOP of the Eisenhower administration. What has happened to the modern GOP that now prevents it from leading science policy? Does the average GOP voter think our scientific infrastructure can be outsourced to China and other countries such as India simply for economic reasons without consequence?