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White House Wants Devastating Cuts To NASA's Mars Exploration
The Bad Astronomer writes "The White House released its proposed NASA budget for FY13, and while much of it remains the same from last year, one particular program got devastating news: Mars exploration got a crippling $226 million cut, more than 38% of its budget. This means killing two future missions outright and threatening others. The reasons for this are complex, including huge cost overruns on James Webb Space Telescope and the Curiosity Mars rover, but it also points to a political lack of valuing science in America."
A followup to news from before the budget was released, this has details on the actual proposed cuts and re-allocations.
Because who needs progress in science?
Didn't we just read a story yesterday that indicated some fairly substantial increases in overall research funding? It seems to me that this indicates a preference for certain research programs over others, not "a political lack of valuing science in America." I mean, you can quibble about which programs got the axe, or say that the overall raises in funding were insufficient, but to point at one research project among the hundreds or thousands that the federal government funds; and use that alone as evidence for a failure in will hardly seems reasonable. It sounds to me more like "My favorite program got cut! Americas hates teh sciences!!!1!one!"
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
This means that the joint venture between Europe and the USA will be cancelled. The next mission will be a joint venture between Europe and Russia? Or perhaps the Chinese?
Be glad there is such a thing as Military Science, or there'd be no funding at all. (except for profit driven industrial research)
Because who needs progress in science?
The 50%+ who are in love with government hand-outs and have forgotten how to provide for themselves are dependent. Cut them off and they're also desperate. Think "political suicide" desperate at best, "rioting in the streets" desperate at worst. So politicians are afraid to cut the real excesses which are the entitlement programs and they are afraid to fix the fucked-up tax code where 46% pay no income tax at all. If you must view that through your political lenses and get offended and hypersensitive, so be it, but it's the truth about why this situation won't change. When a nation gets into this kind of dependency hole for the sake of political power it's hard to get back out, just ask Greece.
It doesn't matter how you feel about the poor and how to best care for them. It doesn't matter when we can't afford to do it anymore, then no one gets much of anything you see. So they cut science to be seen "doing something" about the ridiculous debt that is now about equal to GDP.
Politics got us here. After all people will vote for the guy who gives them free money. Then they'll be scared of the guy who says maybe all that free money costs too much and his career goes *poof*. Something more reasonable than politics is the only way out.
California taxpayers alone are on the hook for $21.8 billion for the fiscal year of 2011 for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I mean really...we can't find $226 million from all national the taxpayers to fund cutting edge science? Science that will have an everyday impact on our lives once NASA's technology becomes consumer grade. But we can steal $21.8 billion in one year from one state alone to fund the wars? Wonderful.
No kidding. I mean that 225 million savings is going to go oh so far!!! As somebody who tends to be in the center of politics I have to say that I am completely disappointed in Obama. He has turned out to be a poor example of a president. Yes yes blame the congress and house as well. I think what bothers me the most with him is his lack of leadership. Yes you can argue that the Republicans are trying to call him out. BUT a great leader like Regan, or Clinton just stared down other politicians. Obama makes bold statments and then backs off in a major way. There is compromise, but there is also taking a stand and setting a clear path.
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
Why waste money on science that Americans will ignore anyway?
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Yes, I know we would advance technology by solving the problems inherent in making the trip, but there is still plenty to explore (and plenty of science we don't yet know) here on Earth that can be done with much less money.
Mars exploration makes good headlines, but it's not the best use of our limited budgets for science and exploration.
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the mars stuff is pretty amazing science atm. pretty lame to be cutting that out now. there are many more things that should be getting the axe before the science and technology research. these things are what really change our lives down the road and make things easier for us. pretty sad imo.
There is nothing to shoot at and no people to make enemies of on Mars. Launch a radio transmitter their that broadcasts fundamentalist Islamic hate messages back at earth and we will be on Mars inside of 2 years.
Sadly my cynicism seems to think that as a species we are going to sit here in the grave of a planet we are digging, kill each other, and slowly be choked to death from our own shit and effluent which we so handily ignore.
Silence is a state of mime.
Maybe you think this about a luddite Obama, but it's more about the fact that the government is squeezed in all quarters. The deficit roars, pension and public programs liability soars, there are huge pressures to keep taxes down in the face of an economic recovery, and it's not a wonder that Mars trip funding gets a heel on the garden hose.
This isn't about leadership, this is about revenue. Go tell your friends that the government is nearly broke and needs real funding. Then, bills assuaged, we can dream about Mars and beyond. Until then, the piggy bank is empty, as in no dough.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Honestly a lot of what private sector has done comes on the back of NASA engineers but companies like these http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_private_spaceflight_companies are able to do it many order of magnitudes cheaper. If it was 20% you wouldn't hear much about it... but they are able to do it upwards of 80% cheaper so far. Lets assume they are way off their numbers (which so far it doesn't look so) they still can do it half as cheap. The reasons for this is that NASA has gotten comfortable with the outsource this, or throw money at it method for it's large projects (not insulting the good projects here). Government contractors charge so much more for things the costs explode.
It's time to lean up NASA and it's going to hurt but if we want to get to Mars some day, then we need to make that big machine vastly more efficient. This is the first step.
Unfortunately, I hate to say I agree with this. The scientific community needs to figure out a way to generate realistic budget predictions AND STICK TO THEIR BUDGETS. If you cannot do this, nobody wants to risk funding future missions / projects. I get the distinct feeling that they lowball their estimates intentionally upfront, knowing that they will be able to go back to the trough later on once the government has that initial investment made. Private business has learned throwing good money after bad is rarely a good idea; government is apparently just now getting the idea. The scientific community needs to become more responsible in this regard.
They'll stop ignoring it once it turns into the next must-have appliance, like a refrigerator or microwave oven.
Somehow my dumbass has used the wrong thier twice on /. this morning and I know better. Maybe I should just shut up.
Silence is a state of mime.
we can't find $226 million from all national the taxpayers to fund cutting edge science?
As a long suffering taxpayer and patriot, the answer is clearly no. If you want to fund a mission to mars, go ahead and write a check, but stop stealing from the mouths of me and my children to fund an incompetent government that just claims the innovations made by PRIVATE individuals as its own. In the future, you should do some basic reading before asking such questions.
It's more lucrative to blow people up, than explore our solar system.
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
Ok, so I want to see us explore mars and space in general. I want this a lot. I think it's important, interesting, exciting, and more. And I really wish we weren't in the financial situation we are in the US, but we are. I don't think this is a matter of the administration valuing space exploration less, but more of a reflection that we can't continue spending recklessly forever.
Mars, space exploration, and science in general are very important for the human kind and the US' wellbeing in general. But we've got to get our shit in order first. I know that using the family metaphor for government is flawed, however, if I have crippling debt in my household, I need to cut back on the things that might not just be what I want, but also some things that may even be important for the future. I need to focus on making it through the here and now, get my stuff in order, and then start making these types of investments.
So, yes, I am really disappointed to hear about this, but I we really need to be brutal for the foreseeable future in how we spend money. Once that's under control we can come back and pick up where we left off.
That more or $226million will buy at least half a small mission to Mars. With the exception of the famous NASA space pen, there NOTHING related to human spaceflight that that money will buy. $226million will make NO difference to human spaceflight. It will buy even less on Obama's ridiculous job creation rocket.
Space exploration is where most of our military science came from in the first place.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
This was not the candidate I voted for and certainly not the one I will vote for next election. For a man who ran on the promise of hope and change, I expected more. The space race was a huge factor in the technological revolution and gave hope to so many Americans when nuclear war seemed more of a matter of when than a matter of if. We need that same hope today. I desperately wish I could be proud to be American again.
their their, all better now.
I always find it sad that people cannot see both the benefits of space exploration/colonization, and the need for it.
Seriously, one errant asteroid and all those trillions spent on welfare and war seem pretty stupid.
Human Race....R.I.P.
10,000 B.C. - 2012 A.D.
As long as Americans cannot see that the tax system which floods their market with untaxed goods while taxing themselves highly is a trade war by congress against them, you can expect this to continue.
New technology will always displace the old. Americans have not quit innovating. Now their innovations are made in China and they take out their own market. Until we fix our tax system the game is rigged against us.
Nice thought, you are quite right though. Either that or put a torrent site up there, thirty days and the lawyers would invade. Mars habitat... done. All it will take is a few MP3s and a movie or two.
... that's right, because NASA is the only group that creates technology useful to the general public. Oh wait, I think a few people ride jet airliners, watch TV or receive phone calls distributed by satellites and use called the Interweb or Webernets... I forget exactly what that last one is called...
Riddle me this, Batman:
What percentage of the total pie of income does that 46% who pay no taxes make?
Answer that, and you'll understand why the people who aren't so upset about that particular factoid see you as the one seeing a distorted world through a "political lens". (As it happens -- the Tax Policy Center, who made the 46% estimate, has a much more level-headed assessment).
Blugh. Not the same thing at all, as the TPC paper explains.
it also points to a political lack of valuing science in America
Not funding your favorite project/field/etc is not the same thing as the whole country not valuing science, histrionic-boy.
Tell that to the people of Jacksonville who were told that the plans to move a carrier group to the area have been put on hold for at least 5 years, possibly indefinitely. No, the real culprit would be the massive social programs that consume more and more of the budget each year. Why? Because there are more civilian low-income votes than any other group. Nice try.
This isn't about leadership, this is about revenue. Go tell your friends that the government is nearly broke and needs real funding.
I gave you all I had, and you tossed it in the trash. You tossed it in the trash. Yes you did.
All apologies to (for?) Bruno Mars
...but it also points to a political lack of valuing science in America.
Or it could mean that the government is finally trying to be fiscally responsible and cut this portion of NASA's budget to deal with the "huge" cost overruns on the James Webb Space Telescopen and the Curiosity Mars rover mentioned in the summary.
This is just another attack on the highly successful robotic missions of JPL by the fly-boy, mannned-mission bureaucrats in Houston. Manned mission are expensive, pork-barrel stunts that have achieved almost nothing scientifically while the JPL robotic missions have been hugely successful (Voyage, Cassini, Opportunity, etc.) and, compared to manned missions, inexpensive. So guess where the cuts are to be? The robotic missions, of course. That is because NASA is run by ex-pilots / astronauts who think Star Wars was a documentary. The Planetary Society was created to stop such bleeding of robotic mission to pay for cost-overruns of manned missions; I just re-upped my membership. Join is you want to stop this insanity.
So we had no military science before the 1950's?
RADAR - military science from the 1930's (no space exploration there - but it was done by the Brits)
Computers - military science from the 1940's (no space exploration there - but it was done by the Brits)
Nuclear power - Rutherford was playing with this in Manchester, England (damn, Brits again) he split the atom in 1917
Advanced maths - parabolic trajectories - that was Galileo in the 1500's (Italian)
Ironclad ships - 1800's (French)
Screw propellor - 1810's (Brits again)
Jet engines - 1930's (Brits again)
So what military science have we got since the space program.
Stealth - low radar & low visible profiles were worked on since RADAR was invented.
'digital camo print' - continual development from existing designs & theories (see dazzle camo)
SCRAMJET - continued development from Jet
laser - not space based
pulse jet - development from existing tech
hovercraft (damned Brits again) and not space based
Space based stuff :-)
GPS - space based progession of existing radio beacon systems.
ICBM - space based (although space is a development from this rather than the other way round)
Satellite comms - progession from existing radio comms systems
satellite recon - progression from existing plane overflight photography
memory foam mattresses - I sleep well at night
The country has three concurrent wars for oil going on, and to fund it they probably spend more than NASA's entire yearly budget in a few months. Add to the mission goals the intent to research and build a giant continent-vaporizing laser, or allude to the presence of crude oil on Mars, and watch your funding skyrocket.
In all seriousness though, there does seem to be a significant lack of interest in the sciences whenever there isn't a clear end result of return on investment. It's no big secret that the almighty dollar makes the world turn.
Potatoes are friggin' magical. Can you power an alarm clock with a carrot? No, sir!
Uhhh, I think it is safe to say that almost everyone in the U.S., even the poverty stricken, have those appliances. We are not India, where they know REAL poverty.
So you're saying that NASA invented modern refridgerators, and the microwave oven?
The problem as I see it is that Americans, or at least American politicians, would rather pander to the portion of the religious right who claim that evolution isn't real, the rapture is near, the Bible contains everything man is meant to know, and science is an instrument of the Satan. It isn't just the right either. The only way I see the US getting into science is if there's money in it. We have been shutting down basic science for years in favor of things like biotech that make big money for business. Not that I have a problem with biotech but come on, if the basic science is done elsewhere then the engineering will follow. You can't just keep suing everybody for "stealing" your 20 year old ideas; you need to keep coming up with new ones. That's where basic research comes in.
Yesterday there was an article about the budget expanding it's investment into science. Today, we report that NASA funding is being cut. So the conclusion is the US hates science?
I don't get it... Hate on them all you want for cutting NASA funding. But it's not a blanket "We hate science" thing...
yvan eht nioj
There is a time for everything. Getting off this planet is a long way off, and delays to the first manned mission will be a blip in comparison. We might not have a suitable colony for large population transfers for hundreds of years, regardless of when we do the first launch.
For that reason, I support focusing on problems now, and let the universities/private funding mature/progress the technology to get to Mars reliably in the mean time.
It is very much the computing/long thought problem. We progress in technology at such a fast rate (NASA is a contributor, but a small player in the grand scheme)that by the time we do design and start doing something productive in space, we probably could have done it faster, cheaper, and safer if we had waited anyways.
As for us killing ourselves off... That fate transcends distance barriers if it is in our nature.
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
The short answer is yes we can afford it but the current climate of unnecessary and dangerous austerity just to make small numbers even smaller is not going away any day soon. Those on the other side have to pick their fights and decided that for a number of reasons "Mars Exploration" isn't one they can back.
BULGARIA!!!
We've got BULGARIA!!! :-\
and they never have been. They are a red herring.
Its a classic LOOK OVER THERE move.
So, please get off this war crap.
The real problem is... we are spending money we don't have and bitching about where this funny money is being spent instead of the fact we are spending it.
Obama has increased spending by 25% since he took office, the graphs are right here http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/president-obamas-spending/
Even if he did allocate that two hundred twenty six million dollars its not money we have, its money your children or their children will pay.
We will have DEFICIT spent that few hundred million before the day is out many times over.
People need to get a clue, we cannot afford this reckless spending. People in the press were having cows over Bush's three hundred and four hundred billion dollar deficits and now that we have in excess of trillion dollar deficits all I read about is how drastic the cuts are!!!
What cuts?
Really people, get real. There ain't going to be any money for NASA or much else down the road unless we get spending under control. Don't look to tax your way out of it either, you could confiscate 100% of what is made over 250K and not pay this years deficit spending.
Sometimes I really wonder if intelligent people post to /. anymore especially after what I see rated insightful. Our budget deficit is almost higher than the budget of Germany.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_budget_by_country
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Whenever a story like would come across /. 4 years ago, we would have endless posts about Bush being an idiot, etc. Now, I can't find a single one saying anything about Obama.....
Do you have ESP?
In fact, Obama calls for spending a lot more money on NIH and NAS. The issue here is that republicans have called for cuts to private space development in hopes of pushing the monster SLS. To do that, the neo-cons will fund russia to the tune of .5B a year from 2015-2018 as well as pay 20-30B for SLS development which will finally launch 70 tonnes to LEO in 2020 (yes, it is already 2 years late). .5B. So, should NASA spend several billion to get one mission to Mars, OR should they spend money today to be able to get a number of CHEAP missions to mars a year earlier?
OTH, NASA wants the economical approach so that they can make a great deal more launches in the future. As such, NASA is cutting several missions that will cost billions, but is spending money on getting human launch going by 2014. However, with that, they will also be able to put red dragon (spaceX's dragon) on Mars with a 1 ton payload of equipment for
I do not like seeing NASA's budget cut, HOWEVER, kudos to Bolden. He is doing the right thing in getting ECONOMICAL private space going.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I contacted my senators, and congressman, you should too.
Or, you know, the better part of a trillion dollars our country spends every year on shit to blow stuff up.
Actual defense is one thing, but we're way the fuck out of control. One Ohio class submarine costs us $2 Billion. The replacement cost is projected to be between $4 and 8 billion per unit (SSBN-X).
You could forego one new submarine and launch all the Mars probes you can dream up, for a decade.
Priorities, bud. Ours are a little fucked up.
I think you'll find that's the other way around.
It isn't about revenue, either. The government has... lots of money.
It's about spending. I.e. the government having absolutely no self-control over it. Spending went up 16% from 2008 to 2009, and in recent years has been nearly a quarter (~24.4% of the US GDP), compared to closed to a fifth over the preeceding 40-odd years (~20%). A government that spends 3.5 trillion doesn't have a revenue problem.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
We have too much capital invested in finding even more ways to probe Uranus.
But for a bit of luck, you're off welfare. Don't be so quick to judge.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
When median income is around $32k and sitting at home on your useless ass pays you around $32k us tax payers are SCREWED. http://www.hawaiifreepress.com/ArticlesMain/tabid/56/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/6076/Average-Federal-Aid-Passes-Average-Disposable-Income.aspx
EVERYONE should pay something. Even it it's just $10.
Better would be if everyone had to write a check to the Feds each month. Withholding hides what's happening to your income.
Someone may owe only $6000, had $7000 withheld and they are happy to get $1000 back as if it was a gift. If they had to write a check each month to the Feds for $500, attitudes on taxing would change overnight.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Doesn't the military drive some science/research forward?
Yes, the military needs to be trimmed back SOME (including some overseas base closures that should've probably happened when The Wall Fell over 20 years ago, but the military should remain strong.
This whole cutting rinky dink Mars programs is a waste of time. The real issue is cutting back on the trillions going into social services (social security, medicare, etc.) while not raising revenue. The social programs were started when we had a huge industrial base, a middle class (especially after the Depression and WWII), and a top 1% that paid taxes at much higher rates. Now there are more sucking on the social services teat than ever, upwards of 50% of Americans pay zero taxes (many of which get refunds when they never actually had a penny withheld), the top tax rates have all fallen way down, and even the capital gains tax is at only 15%.
We can't have our cake and eat it too forever. Why won't a president just come out and say, "We're broke. We need to make real cuts," and be done with it? We're going to add ten TIMES the entire state budget of Arizona in interest only payment obligations forever, until it's paid back... and nobody's doing anything to stop it.
There's only so much a person can expect Obama to do. The reality is that there is a massive movement in this country that is opposing social investment (taxes) for any purpose. If we're not willing to pay extra to balance the budget and increase our investment in our own future, then the real funds we can invest in ourselves decrease as more of our tax revenue is devoted to servicing the debt. I don't think Obama ramming any sort of increased spending down the GOP's throat is a winning strategy, and without tax increases or spending cuts on untouchable programs, there's really no other way. He could stare the GOP down, as you say, but the GOP's politicians have no incentive to back down. Their sole goal is to set the man up to lose the re-election bid, and failing that, they're at least going to stonewall everything he does to make him appear ineffective.
Oh look it's this lie again. Payroll tax. Sales tax. The "46% pay no tax" myth comes from income tax only.
"What percentage of the total pie of income does that 46% who pay no taxes make?"
Riddle me this, Blindman:
What percentage of that 46% who pay no taxes would have voted differently had they been paying to the system even a MINIMUM of 1% of their income? And what if that 1% were tied to the highest tax bracket at a 1:5 ratio such that if you want to raise the highest tax bracket from 35% to 45%, you'd need to raise the lowest from 1% to 3%?
Think of how the masses might yowl for more responsible government spending and vote for people who enforced the spending of their money. Think of how differently this huge voting block might vote if it meant THEIR taxes would go up so they could get "more stuff".
Taxing the "rich" more fairly shouldn't cause us to ignore taxing EVERYONE at SOME rate so we're ALL invested in the system.
Sadly, you're wrong. There's a Libertarian-ish meme out there that purports this, but indeed, there's a revenue problem of horrific size. The outflows of money are huge, despite how much money the Fed has printed. There must be real work done to surfeit the GDP; raw materials and work applied is the crux of the economy. From there, it becomes more complex.
We are a larger, and more complex economy than most people realize. We have far too many US corporate products sequestered offshore, instead of being taxed and brought home. But this only scratches the surface of the problem; we have a very contentious political system right now, and we've ground to a halt with infighting and K Street bribery of the Legislatures.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Put anyone in the White House and it'd be just as much of a clusterfuck. The real disappointment is how fucking stupid US politics has become. It's embarrassing. From the declaration of independence to the current shit-pie? What a fall.
What about the people who use welfare to get back on their feet and become productive members of society again? I guess they don't exist in your Randtopia.
It's called the Weberwebs, and it's awesome.
Yes, the 46% who pay no taxes don't make much at all. So? That isn't the underlying issue.
The parent nailed the underlying issue: People are addicted to government handouts and would rather say "To hell with Mars" than try to do something for themselves. The majority of the people reading/posting on Slashdot are going to be able to fend for themselves and would rather see our tax dollars going to something useful rather than 'entitlements.' But until 50% of the nation thinks in this way and they vote with that in mind, things aren't going to change for the better. At best, we will keep the status quo and at worst, the US will be another Greece in a few years.
Meanwhile they're quite happy spending 85 Godzillion dollars on weapons so they can keep going round the world killing brown people and stealing their oil.
Hey Amerika. It sucks to be you.
Do you know who the biggest beneficiary of the dollars spent on welfare are? It's not individuals - it's merchants. The money that people receive for welfare doesn't go into the bank - it gets spent for food, clothes and other things. You can argue with where it gets spent, and that's a valid argument, but you can't argue that there is a direct benefit to business and, indirectly, to the tax rolls, from welfare.
On the other hand, the president supports modest increases for NIST, NOAA, and DoE research (http://tinyurl.com/7jeeqyb). Remember that NASA isn't the only science in town, and transferring money from Mars science into telescope science is hardly "anti-science."
s/Barack Obama/George W. Bush/
Please at least try to remember who spunked the deficit up the wall and caused the economic crisis. Hint: it all started a long time before 2008.
The other thing that people seem to forget about is that many of those same deductions and exemptions apply to everyone. The couple with 2 children will pay no taxes on $26,500 of income, whether they earn $26k per year or $100k per year. That first $26,500 is untaxed either way (not counting sales tax, gas tax, etc, etc).
At a time when our nation is running a 1.3 trillion dollar deficit, it's silly to suggest that any one agency should be immune, much less get additional funding. Of course, it wold be nice if they'd cut entitlements or military spending, but that wasn't seriously an option anyway. Besides, NASA wastes plenty of money. The main thing that's distressing here is they're opting to cut Mars exploration instead of some of the others.
It's obvious that they should have to make budget compromises the same as anybody else. By cutting the next generation space launcher, they could save tens of billions of dollars. It's a program that basically amounts to pork, and they only do it for political reasons.
It not rocket science.
You simply cannot spend more than you take in.
Deficits DO matter.
Federal Receipts (in constant FY2005 Dollars):
1999 : 1,827.50 Billion
2010 : 2,162.7 Billion
Hmmm, that's interesting, we're actually collecting significantly more money now than we were during the nineties era of higher tax rates...
Budget Surplus/Deficit (in constant FY2005 Dollars):
1999 : 125.6 Billion surplus
2010 : -1,293.5 Billion deficit
And yet, even though the federal goverment is actually collecting quite a bit more than it did back in the golden nineties, we still have this massive deficit! How could this be?
Federal Outlays (in constant Fy2005 Dollars):
1999 : 1,701.8 Billion
2010 : 3,456.2 Billion
Oh.
But yeah, the government isn't collecting enough money, that's the problem for sure.
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
I think Obama is planning to move two brigades out of Germany which is long overdue. Only problem is he is planning to move troops/naval bases to Australia, Singapore and the Phillipines to prepare for the coming confrontation with China. War is peace.
@de_machina
but if this is all it takes to get those 'cut govmint waste!' tards off his back for the election year I'm all for it. Obama's doing this to shut them up, not because it's all that much money. But they're noisy and stupid and tend to convince other people to vote Republican. As bad a president as Obama was/is/will be, he's sunshine and sweetness next to Mitt (a man who, let's not forget, made his fortune buying companies up, borrowing billions on their good name, paying him said billions, and then bankrupting them).
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
This. Rational debate, disagreement without demonizing our opponents, and the spirit of compromise and consensus building all seem to be dead, dead, dead. I for one have been proclaiming to everyone I know, that come election time, every incumbent on my ballot is out, no matter what stripe they are. It can't be any worse than the losers we're stuck with now.
Wow, I scared myself with the last sentence. Please...
Perscriptio in manibus tabellariorum est.
Question: If there's life on Mars and we find out in 50 years instead of 20, what are the practical implications?
Answer: Nada. Zip.
Question: If we can't figure out how to reversibly cool the planet, or get enough concentrated solar energy to use as a substitute for oil an coal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubic_mile_of_oil), what happens?
Answer: A great unpleasantness (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_depletion#Implications_of_a_world_peak), possibly fatal to 5 out of every 6 people or more by the end of the century.
Near Earth orbit efforts have to take priority over exploratory efforts for a while. There's time for exploration after we've averted our own self-made disasters.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
1999: end of the DotCom boom
2012: end of the war in Iraq after nine years; still going in Afghanistan after nine years; war on terror still moving; banks nearly collapse in 2008, still ongoing.
And sometimes deficits are what happen when the world goes nuts. Deficits don't mean justice. Deficits don't mean luxury. Deficits mean you got to live, rather than die, or go into deep financial depression.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
How about you Americans fix your goddam country first and worry about the goddam moon later. You fucked up the world for everyone else and you're worried about the goddam dust on Mars? Get a reality check
Space exploration is one of those programs that should never be cut. It offers far too many far-reaching benefits, many of those unforeseen. Defense spending is definitely an issue, sucking money from other programs, but at least even there society at large has something to gain as we've seen many times in the past.
There's a massive amount of waste in government and I don't mean the big obvious programs. I mean in day to day operations. Walk into any government office and it's obvious. And we hear about bloat and inefficiency every single day.
My fundamental problem with social entitlement programs is that it doesn't provide a long term benefit. We absolutely need these programs, but we also need a way of educating people and discouraging dependency. There are too many people out there who just don't care, and will keep taking handouts as long as they can get them. Of course, you can't just shut down these programs overnight and pull the rug out from under these people. So it's very challenging.
But like I said, space exploration has to rank near the top for importance and value to the human race.
Hint: it all started a long time before 2008.
Indeed. It goes at least back to Nixon ending gold convertibility to allow him to continue to fund Kennedy's Vietnam debacle.,, after removing any limits to money-printing, the end result was inevitable.
Anytime there is any cut to a program, however dubious the scientific merit, that is what you will hear. And that is a perfect example of what I spoke of in the previous posting on this subject. We have created a situation where scientists are now a welfare group on the government dole. There is no 'oh my god if we dont get a man to Mars by XXXX we are doomed!!!' about this. JWST, LHC, manned space missions - all these giganormous projects are more about keeping the scientists employed than any attempt at a rational trade off between ability to fund and desirability of outcome.
So as not to just pick on our Martian overlords, Suppose Cern never built the LHC, what would have happened? Fermilab probably would have run a couple extra years before shutting down. Other smaller labs would continue and other new experiments might come on using the existing infrastructure. Any discovery of Higgs would be delayed. Outside of the HEP/cosmology community how would that delay affect anyone on planet earth?
However, there almost certainly would have been a large excess of high energy physicists and associated professions. Some will say what about grid computing or this or that. While true that the demands of Tevatron and LHC pushed the envelope on some computing technology, those advances were near certain to come not long after without the HEP leadership.
Bottom line is that there needs to be a long hard look at how science is done not just in US but around the world. The way science is funded is certainly broken but it goes well beyond that and reaches into tenure, publishing and other areas.
One of the keys to debt reduction is focusing on cutting big ticket items first. If you're living beyond your means, chances are it's because of your housing costs. If you are renting a $3,000 apartment, it doesn't make sense to try to balance a $1,500 budget deficit by cutting out 1 $10 cup of coffee every week. And it makes even less sense to cut out your $10 birth control medication or something like that.
Likewise, if your nation is spending $3,000 billion on social programs and military spending, and they've got a $1,500 billion deficit, it doesn't make sense to try to balance it by cutting out $10 billion of pork. And it makes even less sense to cut $10 billion in NASA funding.
You can't only think about getting to tomorrow. The decisions we make today could save our lives on the day after tomorrow. It's ok to make sacrifices today to purchase a sustainable future, even if that means a reduced standard of living today and that some of us might not make it to tomorrow.
46% not paying taxes is a HUGE percentage and a huge problem.
Yes the poor pay a smaller percentage tax then the rich. However with 46% not paying tax combined with the fact that they are also recipients of extra services is a problem.
I am not some raving republican stating that we should remove welfare, because we need it, without it the poor will do whatever it takes to survive and whatever it takes will be highly criminal. However if close to half the population isn't paying their share for services then there is a larger problem. I am sure the problem isn't just a simple cause I can see many factors going on to cause this.
1. Decline of work ethic and rise of the "Evil Corporation": These are part of the same problem that is creating a chain reaction. I will flip a coin to choose who started it. Heads Work Ethic, Tails bad Corporate ethics... I got Heads. A small but large enough to be a problem portion of employees have a bad work ethic. Now they are too large to just flat out fire, or under union laws or other labor laws where they couldn't just fire them. So the company wants to get them to quit or work harder, so they oppose new rules to try to get them to do one or the other. These new rules demotivate the honest workers so their performance goes down so more rules go into place. So the company has created an Environment that it difficult for anyone to succeed, but that is countered with the fact most the remaining employees have no real motivation to succeed. Some of the big growth companies have employees who are motivated and want to do a good job, because they do a good job on the whole these companies treat their employees better.
2. Education in Math and Science: "Math is hard" or so says the general population, us geeks actually like that phrase said by others because it makes us feel smarter then the others... However Math and Science are Core skills towards problem solving. Now with computers that can do the daily grudge work with need people skilled in problem solving not just doing what they are told.
3. Education in Arts: Reading Writing and Arithmetic seems to be the key focus on educations. However Arts teaches people how to think for themselves look at problems and solutions differently, and find their way of doing things. Unfortunately Art education has dropped in popularity as something you want to avoid your kid from getting too interested in because that could mean they want to major in Art just to be a starving artist. Art Education is very important to the needs of todays economy however the education systems has been manipulated in a way to say if you major in Art then you need to be an Artist.
4. Polarized government: The GOP no government and the Democrats more services ideas are stupid. What we need are smart services to meet today's infrastructure. Today we need Cheap Cell service and Cheap High Speed Internet, we didn't need this 20 years ago, today we do. Too much business requires Cell and High Speed internet for its daily operations. People need such devices for themselves too. Roughly 1200 a year for every citizen goes to these services and we are stuck to a corporate carrier who finds new ways to nickle and dime us. Communication is now a key infrastructure requirement that we need to adapt to. We also need services to help people find jobs and get training. We don't need short term jobs we need career jobs. We need the Public and Private sector to work together. There are some things public sector can do better then the Private, and some things Private and do better then the Public we need both.
5. Government Consistency: People don't like change. Even though our President got elected with the promise of change we really don't want it. For good reasons too, For most of us we got use to the system and know how to work with it. If the system is always changing you can't plan for the future. Will my taxes go up or down? Even if I can afford it I had plans for the money, if it goes down will the service that I need get hindered in any way and do I need to plan for this...
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Sigh. No mod points today. Thank you for a great post.
"...but it also points to a political lack of valuing science in America."
Whatever. What the fuck ever. It means we value survival, health, and stable living on the planet Earth more than the exploration of another planet, both which cost a lot of money.
The word is PRIOIRTY.
So politicians are afraid to cut the real excesses which are the welfare programs...
FTFY.
Entitlement only applies to SocSec and MediCARE which are, supposed to be, paid for from FICA deductions. Hence you are entitled to them since you have been paying for them.
All the welfare programs, MedicAID included, are just handouts paid for from Federal Taxes. Somewhere in the neighborhood of $400B+ in 2011, IIRC.
No, it is not. One asteroid full of titanium ore would pay for itself in cost and content with margins like Wall Street whores only dream if finding. It is a sad thing that we are still refusing to see what has helped mankind progress. Adventure always provides better return that stagnant culture(s).
The 50%+ who are in love with government hand-outs and have forgotten how to provide for themselves are dependent.
Have you looked at the actual breakdown of that segment of the population?
Take how many of them are senior citizens, who previously paid in taxes, but are now in retirement/subsidence mode. Take how many of them are disabled who can barely tie their own shoes, or the parents/caretakers of such. Take how many of them are children. Take how many of them are barely adults.
Yeah, your picture isn't so easy to condemn when you actually look at the people, not your manufactured strawman of people who you think are lazy pond-suckers.
Tell me it's wrong to be dependent when you're past your prime, when you're just a child, or where through, more than likely no fault of your own, you can't manage much of anything in life?
Tell me how you think you're going to change that, and why.
Cut them off and they're also desperate. Think "political suicide" desperate at best, "rioting in the streets" desperate at worst. So politicians are afraid to cut the real excesses which are the entitlement programs and they are afraid to fix the fucked-up tax code where 46% pay no income tax at all.
And you want them to be desperate, because you believe in a survivalist mindset...but tell us what their income is. Please tell us what taking 100% of what they have would mean.
If you must view that through your political lenses and get offended and hypersensitive, so be it, but it's the truth about why this situation won't change. When a nation gets into this kind of dependency hole for the sake of political power it's hard to get back out, just ask Greece.
Yeah, ask Greece how they feel about the international bankers dictating their national policy.
If they were really smart, they'd say "Screw this" and cut themselves off from the foreign system. Of course, they know they're too small to make that viable, but they should do it, just because the austerity measures forced upon them are going to cause the same harm.
It doesn't matter how you feel about the poor and how to best care for them. It doesn't matter when we can't afford to do it anymore, then no one gets much of anything you see. So they cut science to be seen "doing something" about the ridiculous debt that is now about equal to GDP.
Ridiculous debt? Right. Because debt is something you pay off in a year of your entire income for some reason. Stop buying into the fallacy of large numbers, it looks scary to you the individual, but you know what? I know folks who have a lot more debt than the average spread about per person. Somehow they realize, that's ok, they got it for a reason, and they realize what they get from it.
The problem is they can't see what they get from government spending. It's just beyond their notice.
Politics got us here. After all people will vote for the guy who gives them free money. Then they'll be scared of the guy who says maybe all that free money costs too much and his career goes *poof*. Something more reasonable than politics is the only way out.
Great, now we see your motivations. You want to make the people lose their bread because you think it's all circuses. Too bad you don't realize where the real money is going. The sums that go to the poor are not the majority share of government spending on special interests, they aren't even a plurality. They're a drop in the bucket.
But ok, let's say you take away the welfare. You know what happens? People realize they are going to starve. That's your intent, right? To give them the impetus to get out and do something. Nevermind the fact that many of them are senior citizens or disabled, you'll push them all the same.
Guess what? They aren't going to do what you think. They're going to go out and take what they want, because you know what
Yes, after NASA and public funding has done all the ground work for spaceflight. You know, trained a couple of generations of engineers and specialists. Spent money on blue sky stuff that now benefits everyone. People don't like to admit that governments are still necessary for big initiatives that don't have a short term payoff. If you want to make NASA lean, guess who does the actual work? Contractors.
It was just announced yesterday that the proposed federal budget cut 50% (22 Million) from the Federal Rare Isotopes Beam, which is said the be the next generation of the CERN project in France. The FRIB is currently under construction in Michigan.
We don't need science anyway -- the Chinese will do all of our thinking for us soon.
Riddle me this, Batman:
What percentage of the total pie of income does that 46% who pay no taxes make?
Answer that, and you'll understand why the people who aren't so upset about that particular factoid see you as the one seeing a distorted world through a "political lens". (As it happens -- the Tax Policy Center, who made the 46% estimate, has a much more level-headed assessment).
The issue isn't how much they make, or how much they pay, but that they do pay... something. Get a little skin in the game. If there was a fair/flat tax system place, the 46% that currently pays no taxes would have to weigh the consequence government spending.
If, for example, there was a bill to ensure all pet owners can visit the vet to have their pet spade/neutered and one free checkup per year (call it the Bob Barker bill)... If it costs you nothing, sure! Go for it! It will help those cute puppies and kitties! But, if they say "Your taxes will go up 1% to pay for this", I bet more would say "No, that is part of pet ownership, it's up to the pet owner to pay for it!"
Wasteful spending and government goes hand in hand, and getting more people to get a little skin in the game will help promote a more frugal government. Spending other people's money is easy. Watching others spend your money makes you a bit.... grumpy.
if (it != oneThing) it = another;
There'll be no science until America has shot at every desert in the world. They're sneaky, encroaching everywhere. Surely this is more important than the expansion (and possibly salvation) of mankind?
Sigs are for losers....oh wait...damnit
No, they don't. Deficits mean you are spending too much. It's really that simple.
And PLEASE don't talk about the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. The combined total of BOTH those wars is still far less than we spend on Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security EACH YEAR. (Not that I wouldn't like to cut down on our military adventurism too.)
We have a SPENDING problem. The government is trying to do too much and spending itself into oblivion in the process. It's not a "meme" no matter how much you desperately want to believe it to be. It's reality.
Unless we want to end up like Greece (Is Athens still burning?) we need to end this. Creating fancy new entitlements like Obamacare just make the collapse come that much sooner.
Sorry kids. there is no free lunch. (or free medical care, or free retirement, or free anything.) We simply cannot afford to lie to ourselves about it anymore.
Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
Bush average deficit: $410 Billion a year
Obama average deficit: $1.413 Trillion a year
So, dave420 is obviously a lying dumbass.
No truth around here! Bush dammit Bush! Bust killed little puppies on the White House lawn!
Everyone /does/ pay something, idiot. Sales taxes. Property taxes. Social Security. Medicare. Gasoline.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
Yeah, luck, and my work ethic and those degrees I got (which I worked for at a state university) and all those expensive books I buy and read to keep my skills current and all those extra hours I put in when it was called for or even when not and...
I did community outreach stuff for three years in college for credits where I worked with the poor. Luck was vary rarely involved in the varied situations I encountered. What I saw was people faced every day with the results of bad decision making, and yet they *still* went ahead and made the same bad decisions every day.
And, no, I don't agree with Mr. Cut Welfare up there. Just tired of the whole "there but for the grace of god go I" attitude.
Something more reasonable than politics is the only way out.
Huh? Like what? Dictatorship?
Why do you think this has happened? My hypothesis is that the distribution of wealth is the underlying issue, if you have 1B dollars, you don't need to compromise ever and you have the resources to fund whatever politicians you can to get your agenda through, you can apply enormous media pressure on anyone who disagrees with you, pundits will advocate for you and politicians will vote for whatever you want, often you don't even have to spend money to get what you want, just threaten to.
The 50%+ who are in love with government hand-outs and have forgotten how to provide for themselves are dependent. Cut them off and they're also desperate.
50% dependent on the government? So not paying federal tax is being "dependent"? You so-called "conservatives" have a funny way with language. When my grandfather was a young man in the 1920s, only the rich paid federal tax. One would think an anti-tax "conservative" would be happy that half the citizens aren't paying tax.
There are some government handouts I'd like to get rid of -- handouts to the rich, who get most of your tax money. IBM getting back more than they paid, GE paying no tax, oil company subsidies, farm subsidies... and you would begrudge a few table scraps for the poor? Disgusting.
Free Martian Whores!
As I said to the other idiot (yes, you're an idiot too): everyone /does/ pay taxes: sales, property, medicare, social security, gasoline, etc.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
Last time I checked our star isn't going to die for several billion years.
I think it is cool to go to mars, but you know what else would be cool.... a cure for cancer(s).
Work on robotics, work on materials, work on computers, work on getting into space cheaply, work on better rockets.... the list goes on and on.
We are simply not ready to go to mars and quite frankly just doing it isn't a real good reason. I don't see the real scientific progress that would be made. I'd rather work on getting a base built there that we could land and just live.
Redistribution of resources and wealth in the name of social justice has always criticized spending on Science and Military. How can you spend money on these trivial things when there are poor people who need that money?
Which "science" would progress from going to Mars? You guys invoke "science" and "progress" with absolutely no backing evidence, like a religion, every single bloody time space is mentioned.
When it ended US manned rocket launches, i.e. killing the shuttle replacement. The shuttle was the public face of NASA. The average Joe is not highly interested or informed about egghead space probes. The best replacement for the shuttlle- Dragon- is slipping badly in schedule. Its software was determined not safe enough by NASA standards, and sent back for reworking. killing the rest of NASA is just a postscript.
Kinda hard for congressman Porkman and senator Kickbackus to bring home the bacon anymore with NASA now that the shuttle, which had its parts shotgunned all over the country is dead. as long as the POTUS keeps starting one war after another they can say they are "supporting the troops" which looks great in the commercials while at the same time getting their nephew a cushy job at the MIC and cashing some nice checks while saying they are "Bringing jobs to our district!" so expecting them to give a shit about NASA when there is nothing monetarily in it for them is an impossibility.
While I don't agree with Ron Paul on most of the issues one thing i do agree with him on is the end of fiat money and the MIC is why. as long as they can just print money and the fed can make it painless to put everything off until tomorrow with cheap money they can continue to blow cash like shit through a goose on the military industrial complex with no real short term consequences. If they actually had to raise taxes or cut spending before they could build that 11th aircraft carrier (even when we outnumber everyone on carriers 5 to 1 and the one they are wanting to replace is still serviceable) or sink more cash into the giant fail that is the F35 then maybe they would set some priorities and stop blowing all this cash. And as for TFA maybe if they knew their budgets couldn't be increased without raising taxes maybe NASA wouldn't have let the Webb telescope get so out of hand in the first place.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Its not about how much they make, and thus how much taxes give; its how do those 46% expect to pay for the services they demand off the Government? They're defended, go to school, drive on roads, can get all forms of welfare, enjoy national parks, tv programming etc...[trying to give a gamut here].
What we need is "buy in" from everyone. Not contributing puts one outside the system - anything is better than nothing. If they can't do it monetarily then how about donating time en lieu of that...child care, sweeping the streets, working at a park, helping at a school, housing projects, national service...theres plenty to be done.
I don't know that you are correct since one of the items they mention in their example of Federal Aid is college tuition aid. That can easily be seen as an investment in the future as it is likely that someone receiving college tuition aid will make more money in the future and will then pay back any aid they received.
We must disagree. And the funded programs you speak of are funded in different ways.
Spending? Yes, it's badly done. But we're not ready to blow money on Mars travel until the other issues are taken care of. Perhaps we can agree on that.
The problems in Greece are a red herring for this argument. That problem has been brewing for decades. It's a different culture, and the problems Greece faces are for vastly different circumstances. Drawing parallels to Greece isn't tenable.
No one said their was a free lunch. I willingly pay more than my intake because I believe people are important. Taxes are too cheap in this country. I want healthy people, and insurance that's underwritten by the entire populace, including you and me. That's not "free"; it's responsible. We all sink or swim together. I believe we'll swim. I have faith in my fellow Americans and in their ability to create a place where you don't go bankrupt because you work at McDonalds and get breast cancer.
Given the crux of your points, I'm not sure we'll be able to agree. But we can try to see the benefits of understanding where the real economic problems are, rather than repeating political propaganda points.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
pulse jet - swedish / russian improved by a french engineer
ICBM - evolved from the german V2 fying bomb. work done in US by captured nazi scientists
scramjet - evolution of ramjets invented in france
ao, all you got is laser and memory foam.
What ? Me, worry ?
What... the.. fuck...?
I would like to take your post seriously.. but you apparently lack an understanding of economics necessary. .... True. But meaningless. For one, federal expenditure and currency in circulation are only peripherally related. Mostly because they both involve the US economy. Also meaningless because of the word "huge" ... huge with respect to what?
"The outflows of money are huge, despite how much money the Fed has printed"
"There must be real work done to surfeit the GDP; raw materials and work applied is the crux of the economy. From there, it becomes more complex." ... well .. yes. But this is entirely meaningless information for an assertion that revenue, not spending, is the cause of the government's problems.
"We are a larger, and more complex economy than most people realize. We have far too many US corporate products sequestered offshore, instead of being taxed and brought home. But this only scratches the surface of the problem; we have a very contentious political system right now, and we've ground to a halt with infighting and K Street bribery of the Legislatures." ... So, you're saying we have an overly-bureaucratic tax system with lots of overly bureaucratic bureaucrats that are incapable of adapting to complex economies because they're ... bureaucrats following protocols. And they're too fucking busy trying to prove which side has the bigger dicks to reign in their spending. But its a revenue problem?
In NASA funding, it seems the best you can hope for is that the politicians do the right thing (encourage private space transportation) for the wrong reason (it's cheaper). Obama is doing the right thing - the problem is Congress.
SLS funding enthusiasm is not so much partisan as it it regional. The NASA centers in Florida, Texas, Alabama, and California want SLS to continue so the jobs in their states/districts will continue. Those states may look like they're solid red or blue, but if you look at their representatives on the House Space subcommittee, they're surprisingly balanced - typically one D and one R.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
I've been working with social services agencies as a volunteer long before you were born (1960s). There are a lot of people with unfortunate circumstances, poor decisions made, drugs, and all varieties of misery. Some rise out of that. We're still responsible for those that can't make it.
On the past weekend, I saw a guy playing in a cafe with a tip jar out. Pretty good. I put money in the jar not knowing he was homeless. Yesterday morning, in another part of town, they found a homeless man frozen to death. You do what you do. Others may or may not be motivated to achieve your sense of justice. This is their problem; I know my own.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
the fucked-up tax code where 46% pay no income tax at all.
Hey, only 54% more to go.
No, but really, your statement is false. Income taxes are part of the cost of goods. On an average basis, 22% of the price of good you pay in the store goes to pay the income taxes of those in the product stream.
If your taxes went up $10000, you'd want $10000 more from your employer (with a small margin of elasticity) and your employer would raise his prices to cover that. By time the income taxes of the farmer, the fertilizer manufacturer, the truck drivers (and the road maintenance crews), the grain mill operators, the bakers, the wholesalers, the grocery store owner, the stock boy, the checkout clerk, and the bagger are paid, the $2 loaf of bread contains about 50 cents in income taxes. That's a 22% income tax paid by the most needy.
And now that that loaf of bread is $3, they're paying a 12%-ish inflation tax every year too. To help fund the Wall Street bailouts to stockholders of the Federal Reserve Bank.
So, the minimum effective tax rate in the US is now about 35%. People who pay direct income taxes can add that number to the top. And somehow US workers can't be labor price-competitive with China or Mexcio...
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
It can't be any worse than the losers we're stuck with now.
Ah, youth... I miss my naivete. I never thought I'd see a worse President than Carter until Shrub came along.
Just when you think things can't possibly get any worse, they get worse.
Free Martian Whores!
If you ever had to pay to have a feral cat colony removed, or a wild dog pack hunted down, you might realize that such a program for pet spaying/neutering might be a wiser investment than you think.
Sometimes giving somebody else what seems like a free lunch is less costly to you than you might realize.
Actually it is absolutely true that its ONLY a spending problem. Saying otherwise is like saying we have to "pay for tax cuts". Absurdity in the extreme. Every strata of income, be it the poor to middle class to high earners to large Government revenue, overspends...we shouldn't have a [rising] spending budget and work out how to raise the revenue to match it, but instead see what our income is and work out what we can spend from what we get. What do you think happens to those that live their lives by saying "this is what I want to spend", now I have to work out how to get a job and get credit cards to pay for it? How well does that work out? Contrast that with those that say "this is my income, what can I afford?".
evryone IS taxed. you buy a pack of gum, you pay some taxes. it's like that in many countries, not only in US.
and if tie the upper tax bracket to the lowest, the next day congress would drop the lower bracket to 0.1%, get the votes from the lowest bracket and bribes^H^H^H^H^H^Hcampaign contributions from the upper one.
What ? Me, worry ?
I wish I had mod points!
I'm so sick of these religious like responses from scientists; it's as if they made abortions free and all the jesus freaks said we don't value life anymore. (The lack of respect for science IS a problem in the USA; part of the anti-intellectualism movement but being anti-Mars is not really part of it.)
We have HUGE problems here on earth that are not being solved. Hell, one reason Bush pushed the Mars program was to retask NASA away from planetary science; a clever move for an idiot... (it seems more like Rove's signature to me.)
I'm a step further away in that I see no value in going to Mars in even 100 years. Robots are superior today and in 20 years they will be as far ahead as they are now from 1992. When you can cheaply jump start the core of Mars or build a functioning society in insulated caves...then start colonizing. I meet actual adults who think we'll jump ship after wreaking the earth and move to Mars! So I ask them, about living in a space ship with robot servants waiting for the Earth to heal itself like the film WALL-E, they think that is too unrealistic!
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
My point is the flip is about to occur. More people will be riding the train then shoveling the coal. And those freeloaders vote. Buckle up taxpayers it's only going to get worse, fast.
Creating fancy new entitlements like Obamacare just make the collapse come that much sooner.
Sorry kids. there is no free lunch. (or free medical care, or free retirement, or free anything.) We simply cannot afford to lie to ourselves about it anymore.
I agree with your second sentiment; however, I would caution you not to lie to yourself about "obamacare." http://www.cbo.gov/publications/collections/health.cfm
There was a higher tax rate that did target only the super rich back in the 1930s. Only one person actually paid this higher rate. Rockefeller. The government could do something similar today. Target those who make $1 Billion+. Right now the 1% tax hikes also hit small businesses. Many if not most of these people make less then $1 million a year. They are a lot better off them most of us certainly. But Gates, Buffet, and Zuckerburg are in a totally different class then the guy who own the landscape place down the road. They should not be taxed at the same 1%er rate.
I don't know what else to comment, I've already been warned that I probably won't be around at our research facility next year. A lot of my peers have had the same warning. The funny thing is, we're already short staffed, I don't know where the money goes that we're saving by last years layoffs, but we're expected to do 80 - 120 man hours of work in 40 hours a week, I feel sorry for the guy who takes over my position, because I'm the only one left on my team, and you can't just jump in where I am.
Oh well, it feels kind of like a huge stress ball being lifted off my shoulders, now I just have to find a new job before they pop into my cubical and say, "Surprise! You're laid-off! Peace out."
What, you think the attitude to taxing isn't:
"Damn it, I pay TOO MUCH, and OTHERS pay too LITTLE?" with a side of "What do I get for it anyway?"
?
I'm pretty sure that the outrage you want to foster is quite apparent, even without the Bear Tax.
You know what would work, if people were made to directly pay for the services they receive. You want the police to stop a speeder? You pay a fee. You want the firemen to come to your home? Pay on the spot. Want to drive on a road? Toll fee. Breath clean air? Get it from a bottle instead! Make them pay their Bear Tax if they want a Bear Patrol!
The real problem is not that your taxes are disguised, it's the benefits are diffused. You probably give not one thought to your water being clean and drinkable, and if you do attribute it to somebody, it's your water company, but they're just one stream in the river.
Most people at some time in their lifetimes will accept some kind of assistance from the federal government. You seem to think that because you have a job, you can "fend for yourself" and everything the government does is a sponge off of your effort. "Something useful rather than 'entitlements'". At some point in your life, your parents are going to need their social security. Your aunt is going to need Medicaid or Medicare. Your neighbor may need SSI. Your co-worker is going to need short-term disability. Your brother may need his veterans' benefits one day. 50% of the nation isn't unemployed and living on government handouts. But the "screw it, I got mine" attitude that is everywhere in America these days is pretty short-sighted, unless you really have a mountain of cash hidden somewhere and are prepared to support all your less-fortunate family and friends with it independent of the government.
You can read what the unemployment rate really is, and the caveats that go with those numbers, in the newspaper or on your computer. I'm pretty sure it's nowhere near 50%. You can read what the US individual income tax rate is and compare that to other countries', here;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_rates_around_the_world
(Hint, we're 23rd highest.)
"People are addicted to government handouts and would rather say "To hell with Mars" than try to do something for themselves." I disagree. It's not the unemployed who've cut science from this (proposed) federal budget. It's the president, clearly. And it's not that he's cutting Mars specifically, though it looks that way. He wants NASA to defend its budget, and to find cuts elsewhere in order to preserve those things (like Mars, in which NASA has kicked ass in recent years) that are truly important. He's doing the responsible thing, the thing Grover Norquist would most advocate in fact, which is to use the budgeting process to drive reform and prioritization. One would think the Republican applause for this would be deafening.
You think those with NO income should pay income tax?
Social Security, Medicare-- People in general take out much more in benefits than they ever paid in (Ponzi Scheme).
Can't really call that contributing, can you?
This is to be expected. Obama is really not about technological advancement. This is the same man that in a speech bemoaned the existence of ATMs as they put tellers out of work. He's about his social agenda. NASA is symbolic as nothing of significance was really cut, and he knows the anti-science types on the right won't fight it. It gives him something to point to and go "see! I made the hard decision."
His budget will never be voted on in any case. Neither side wants to touch that mess.
That's one of the reasons I didn't get behind him last election. I'm far too jaded to believe ANY politician (least of all one who hails from Chicago - possibly the most corrupt city in the entire country) who says such lovely things.
Having said that, I'll never forgive him for destroying the trust of some of the more idealistic members of my generation. So many of them truly believed them and most appear to be utterly crushed as they realize he's just another politician. Perhaps being jaded makes me wiser but that doesn't mean I like watching other peoples' dreams get shattered.
This. Rational debate, disagreement without demonizing our opponents, and the spirit of compromise and consensus building all seem to be dead, dead, dead. I for one have been proclaiming to everyone I know, that come election time, every incumbent on my ballot is out, no matter what stripe they are. It can't be any worse than the losers we're stuck with now.
When you vote out an incumbent, you end up with the other career politician who was voted out as an incumbent last cycle. Rinse and repeat.
It's nobody's job to deliberately inflict pain on the poor just to improve the political environment for your personal pet policies.
People who make more than $250,000 per year really are wealthy, not "rich" in scare quotes.
Everyone is naturally invested in the system which they live in, no special effort necessary
No, it is not. One asteroid full of titanium ore would pay for itself in cost and content with margins like Wall Street whores only dream if finding. It is a sad thing that we are still refusing to see what has helped mankind progress. Adventure always provides better return that stagnant culture(s).
I think not. How would you get that titanium from the asteroid to the earth? If it would pay for itself like you claim, believe me businesses would be doing it.
Tang?
There is or can be built a machine that can simulate any physical object. -Church-Turing principle
You can blame the GOP for Obama making [mostly election] promises that he could not possibly keep. Of course the GOP have a goal for him to lose re-election...in precisely the same way the Dems want that with a Repub running for re-election - its because there's serious policy differences.
* can't blame
The only reason those that pay no FEDERAL INCOME tax (and that's the percentage you're citing) is because they don't make enough. They're either unemployed, or unemployable (disabled, illness, whatever).
These same people are actually already paying over 30, and even sometimes over 40 percent of whatever income they might have in taxes (if they're employed and have income): payroll taxes, sales taxes, fees, etc. They don't HAVE any more money to spare, and still keep food on the table and a roof over their heads.
And these people are already taxed at a GREATER PERCENTAGE OF INCOME than the wealthy (like, by double or even triple).
It is also the wealthy who benefit dramatically from the Federal Government (especially the legal and commerce systems, transportation, etc), both directly and indirectly... not to mention the police that are protecting their wealth.
Let's get back to taxing the rich fairly FIRST before jacking up tax-rates on those who can least afford it right now.
How do you expect them to pay when the problem is THEY HAVE NO MONEY?
Why would you want them to pay when we're immediately going to get them back it and more in the form of welfare etc? Or would you want to cut their benefits too and let more of them die? I mean, it's okay if you want that, just please admit it.
No, it is all about ledership. When a very large portion of our society is on the dole instead of just those truly in need, we have a huge political problem. Leadership would be brave enough to reform entitlements to serve those in need. If we cannot find politicians who are willing to press these reforms, we will collapse. It is really that simple. Cutting a few million from here and there like this does exactly nothing to solve the real problems we face. Drumming up public resentment of the wealthy and suggesting that taxing them higher will make a significant dent in the hundreds of billions a year hole is also disingenuous and outright destructive.
FYI: Our social security is actually running at a surplus and have generated over a trillion dollars in added money over the years, the government just took it and spent it on other stuff as a way of hiding their overall overspending.
To me, I would honestly prefer us to actually cut military spending to actual reasonable levels and hopefully end some other stuff that actually does nothing for the overall good, like the War on Drugs which has already proven several times over to be ineffective while stripping us of our civil liberties and costing us trillions from the increased cost of jailing all these people who have committed no real crime instead when we could have legalized it while taxing and regulating it heavily which would improve the quality and lower the price which leads to better health of the nation, lower overall usage rates (as proven in other areas where the fact it is illegal has actually make it more popular and when legallized, it's use spiked and then settled to lower levels overall) weaken organized crime both locally and foreign and bring in billions a year in tax revenue instead of having it leave the country to pay for the pot made elsewhere. And this from a man who doesn't drink, smoke, or do any drugs.
What ya bet military is getting an increase.....i think the usa is totally doomed now....anyone else that thinks otherwise is foolish.
Abandoning what made it a power beyond its military will ensure that collapse.
Space Nutter lies. Please explain SAGE, a fully computerized weapons-control system with graphical input before any of your space religion ever happened? Like all religions, once confronted with facts, the faithful will just protest louder and shift goalposts. Just watch.
First, the 46% only applies to FEDERAL INCOME TAX. Those same individuals are paying plenty of taxes (payroll taxes, sales taxes, gas taxes, fees, etc).
Second, those same people pay a much GREATER PERCENTAGE of their income in taxes over-all, than the wealthy (look at Romney's tax return as an example). The poor can spend 30-40% of their income in taxes, while the wealthy can end up paying between 15-20%. That's DOUBLE.
Start from a twisted-deceptive propaganda point, and it leads you to ridiculous conclusions.
Huh? You fucking nuts? Think about what you just wrote. The little they return in fees and taxes are wiped out by the amount that group absorbs in tax payer funded freebies, idiot.
People in general take out much more in benefits than they ever paid in (Ponzi Scheme).
If that was the definition of "Ponzi Scheme" then I think the term would have a much more positive connotation, and people would LOVE "Ponzi Schemes".
-- Let us endeavor so to live that when we pass even the undertaker shall be sorry. -- M. Twain
No matter how many times you repeat it makes no difference. There is no government spending plan that will every please everyone. It's not possible. There'll always be someone that says- too much!
To get rid of deficits, raise revenues. The meme of the impossibility of surpluses isn't rational, in my opinion.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
It's "stratum". "Strata" is plural.
It's nice to blame the government, and easy, too. You can only get so much blood from a rock, until the rock can give no more. That's what we've done to the budget process by starving off taxes. Greed knows no boundaries.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Considering that half of those "46%" are probably retirees on Social Security and Medicare who have joined the Tea Party to complain about big government spending, I doubt that hitting them with a 1% tax would have changed their vote from whatever nutter promised to keep the government from "pulling the plug on Grandma".
Hmm, this is a slightly strange thread. Several of the key comments are AC.
Trying to be clear - we're talking about why we can't go to Mars, because it's "too expensive", right?
So then we're getting into expenses vs handouts.
So has no one noticed the *other* two colossal drains of money? The Security Theatre (Now Playing!) and the Big Brother Engine. We're spending money to watch ourselves not-spend-money. (Copyright)
What happened is that we have decided/proved we are not socially mature enough to avoid the Eternal Paranoia trap of the Post-911-World - on land!
Can you imagine how tight the conditions are on a Mars mission? All the AC's keep saying "what would a Mars mission teach us?"
Answer: How to survive on REALLY limited resources!
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Freeze dried ice cream, mmm :-)
"The only reason those that pay no FEDERAL INCOME tax (and that's the percentage you're citing) is because they don't make enough. They're either unemployed, or unemployable (disabled, illness, whatever)."
From my perspective, the only VALID reason to pay no FEDERAL INCOME tax is that they have no INCOME. People shouldn't get more back as a tax RETURN than they actually pay in taxes. People should also only be able to reduce their tax burden down to a mandated MINIMUM. Not ZERO or NEGATIVE (where they get money back).
Even if you make $1, you should pay 1%. One penny. If you make $25,000, you should pay 1% (right now it's zero -- and often they get more money BACK than they actually PAID). That comes to 250 per year, or about $21 a month. Get them invested in the system.
Now, lets go back to having EVERYONE participate in the system -- a system everyone already can VOTE for people who spend public money, but only about half of us actually CONTRIBUTE to the public pie. THAT is fairness incarnate!
"It is also the wealthy who benefit dramatically from the Federal Government (especially the legal and commerce systems, transportation, etc), both directly and indirectly... not to mention the police that are protecting their wealth."
That statement is SUCH a cop out. It's EVERYONE who EATS FOOD who benefit dramatically from the Federal Government (ESPECIALLY the legal and commerce systems -- and PARTICULARLY transportation). You just try to find food in Los Angeles or New York city if the legal system breaks down -- or the transport system breaks down -- or the ability to move/buy/sell goods breaks down.
WE ALL benefit dramatically from the system. We should ALL be vested in the system at SOME minimal level.
As americans we are all invested in the system.
The poorer people who don't pay any income taxes are overwhelmingly residence of red states and congressional districts.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/12/us/even-critics-of-safety-net-increasingly-depend-on-it.html?pagewanted=all
Part of this is due to the lower wages and lower cost of living in many of these conservative states.
Similarly, the ratio of government spending to tax receipts is tilted heavily in favor republican districts and states.
http://www.taxfoundation.org/files/sr139.pdf
Lastly, taxing poor people has little economic benefit. When such a large portion of their income is spent on goods, increased taxes only reduce their economic consumption and also reduce the amount they might be able to save. Similarly these people pay a higher percentage of their income on sales taxes than wealthier people. This is why sales tax and flat taxes are considered a regressive as it punishes poor people more than wealthy ones.
Wealthier people have much more discretionary wealth which they may choose to spend or invest.
We cannot forget that one of the main reasons we have a deficit is due to the huge tax breaks provided to the very wealthy. During WW2 we had a 91% top tax rate, this lowered after the war to 70% in the 1970s, 50% in the 80's and to 33% now, but with capital gains income that can go down to 15%.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_the_United_States#Historical_income_tax_rates_.281913.E2.80.932010.29
Another reason is that we never included the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the budget, and never found a way to pay for them, by either cutting spending or raising taxes. Notice the fiscal responsibility used during WW2 to raise taxes on the wealthy to pay for defending our country. This is in stark contrast to the war we chose to start in Iraq.
It seems that what we need is to clarify what the effective tax rate of everyone is. This is quite difficult to do, due to the Federal nature of the US government. There are many different levels of government (National, State, County, Local) applying many different taxes (Income, Sales, Property, etc...).
I agree that knowledge of their exact total tax rate (and the rates of others) would affect voters. Just stop spewing this nonsense that we need to tax "everyone" at "some" rate. Everyone is already taxed at some rate. Before we can have a meaningful discussion, we need to establish what actual tax rates are paid, and to whom. Income taxes are simply not the primary form of taxation for a large percentage of the population.
-- Let us endeavor so to live that when we pass even the undertaker shall be sorry. -- M. Twain
Space exploration is where most of our military science came from in the first place.
Demonstrably false. America's first rocket... the Redstone... was an evolution of captured German V-2 technology to give the Air Force a ballistic missile. It was adapted from military use to civilian purposes, not the other way around. You've got it backwards. Our space technology was spawned from military technology. From the very beginnings of the space program, rockets, technology, pilots... all of it came from military sources.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Cite?
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
If they "drive on the roads", they are paying the state and federal gas taxes to keep the roads maintained. If they "enjoy national parks" they are paying the park entrance fees. "TV programming" -- what? -- unless they are watching PBS they are watching the commercials which pay for that. If by "defended", you mean that Lockheed Martin and Boeing get to rake in $$billions for products which usually don't meet the original specs, then I 'm not sure what service they are getting there.
This is what happens when you have inept managers like the immensely disliked Ed Weiler, former chief of the science directorate, let costs get out of control. He's now retired in Florida pointing fingers at OMB for the budget cuts, when HE was responsible for the cost overuns on the James Webb telescope and the Mars missions. He's now trying to spread the blame to everyone else.
The article simply says that the 46 percent pay taxes in other areas. But... so what? Other people pay income taxes and those taxes as well. The fact remains that close to half of our population pays no income taxes after refunds. Some of them even make money after things like the EIC.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
"evryone IS taxed."
Sorry if I wasn't clear -- this was a TFA was in regards to a federal program -- I was talking about federal income tax specifically.
I have little issue with contribution of state income taxes to state budgets -- other than in my case (California) relies far too heavily on the wealthy -- which in a down economy necessarily will dramatically lower what a State has estimated -- and/or have the wealthy move out of state completely (both of which have heavily impacted CAs budget).
Dipshit.
The context of the comment is clearly concerning Income taxes.
Pay fucking attention.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Rutherford is a Kiwi! But he spend most of his adult life in the UK and Canada IIRC.
Boo hoo, the cuts won't save that much. Boo hoo lack of leadership. Boo hoo, so and so great leader wouldn't have done this.
Pretty much the same argument posed by every agency and project facing a cut.
Everyone /does/ pay something, idiot. Sales taxes. Property taxes. Social Security. Medicare. Gasoline.
More specifically, if there are going to be income taxes, then everyone should pay something toward those too, not just the peripheral taxes. I'd prefer a low flat tax across the board, but regardless of what kind of tax structure we have, if we're going to have one, everyone with income should pay into it. Of course, if we'd actually take responsibility and not spend so much, this would be less of a problem in any case.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
It's a good thing the military is still funded... Because who needs progress in science?
It's stunning that this post made it to plus five, and shows just how insidious misinformation can be.
Obama's budget CUTS military spending. Not reduces the growth rate. CUTS. By tens of billions of dollars. The DoD budget in 2012 was $671 billion. Obama's proposal for 2013 puts it at $620.3 billion
If you follow that second link, you can see the cuts/increases broken out by department. You'll see that the biggest cuts hit the military, the Department of Homeland Security (especially hitting the TSA), the FBI, and the ATF. There are also big scary red circles on the DOL (but that's due to decreasing unemployment and thus decreases in unemployment benefits paid out) and Federal Student Aid (but look closely and you'll see its a reduction in mandatory spending offset by a matching increase in discretionary spending). And finally, there's NASA, being cut by a whopping 0.3%.
This is like a Slashdotter's dream budget. Cuts to the military and the TSA and all the other three-letter bogeymen, increases to science spending, and a reduction in overall spending. But by focusing one single tiny program, just 0.006% of the budget, the article submitter was able to masterfully manipulate scores of people into thinking that this budget is bad and anti-science.
If they were really smart, they'd say "Screw this" and cut themselves off from the foreign system. Of course, they know they're too small to make that viable, but they should do it, just because the austerity measures forced upon them are going to cause the same harm.
That's an interesting thought, but I really think "austerity measures" are preferable to "mass starvation". Very few countries (especially in Europe) are self-sustaining anymore. Cutting yourself out of the global system could have some pretty terrible consequences. It could also reinvigorate your population and jump start your economy. It would be an interesting experiment... but a very risky one.
-- Let us endeavor so to live that when we pass even the undertaker shall be sorry. -- M. Twain
I was talking about federal income tax specifically.
They all know that. They just want to change the context because they know they can't win the argument.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Got a cite for that claim about ATMs, or was that just something that was on Limbaugh's show?
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
However if close to half the population isn't paying their share for services then there is a larger problem
Why don't 46% of Americans make enough money to be in the bottom tax bracket?
If you can answer that question, you'll be much closer to understanding the systemic problems the USA has been facing for decades.
I also take issue with your phrase "paying their share for services".
If a large portion of that 46% are receiving services, how the hell are they supposed to be paying for it?
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
And that's really what kills democracy. When the cycle starts of approving giving yourself stuff at the expense of the state the end will come. It may not come right away; but it will come. This is why reducing our deficit and national debt is so important - if we don't, the end of the USA will be guaranteed. Essentially, the old saying:
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years.” ( Alexis de Tocqueville )
"benefits from the public treasury" are Entitlements - Medicaide, Medicare, Social Security, Welfare, etc; and that is what is presently killing the Greece, Italy, and other economies in Europe. The USA can still avoid it if reforms are properly made. But the present elected class can't seem to do their job in that respect.
Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
This is such a common fallacy - it frustrates me every time I see it. Let's conduct a very simple logical experiment:
I'm a business owner. If a kid walks by and smashes out my front window, I need to have the window replaced.
This causes me to call the window shop, who then call their supply chain, and pay their employees all the way down the line. Great economic growth, right? I'm adding to the economy, right?
So under that thinking, we'd be helping the economy if my window got smashed out every week. Hell, even better, smash them all out, every day. Then my neighbor's windows too! Pretty soon, we'll have a roaring economy, right?
Do you see the fallacy here? The error in your thinking?
Spending tax money on an economy does not add to the system, it detracts from it, the same way smashing a window out does. True, you may see local fluctuations in certain sectors (the window repair businesses) but overall, you're detracting from the system.
Tax and spend is the same concept, only on a much greater scale. You're detracting from the economy in total, to provide for local "appearance" of growth.
You can argue whether welfare is a necessary program, and that's a good debate to have. Please don't fall for the absurd notion that it is somehow good for the economy. It's not. It's a terrible burden on everyone, including the recipient.
Drinking habits can be dangerous. You can choke on the cloth and the nuns will wonder where their clothes are.
That's a philosophical statement, not an argument.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
War is better for the short term economy and industrial output than science.
This thread is disappointing and discouraging to me. I would have thought the moderators would have scored the discussion at the top much lower and the discussion toward the bottom significantly higher than the 3's it is receiving. 5's for this type of junior political analysis is just plain unjust.
The NASA budget for manned Mars exploration should be cut. Put the money into the hands of private space industry like SpaceX and foster competition. NASA was great when we needed a public works project for this type of science, but it is time to shift gears and let a free market move us ahead.
Perhaps the underlying issue is that our society is structured in a way that the top 10% hold more than 50% of the wealth.
"The poorer people who don't pay any income taxes are overwhelmingly residence of red states and congressional districts."
Is this REALLY an argument about Republicans vs. Democrats? I don't see it. I see it a FISCAL conservatives vs. FISCAL liberals. How do they SPEND the money? I don't really care much how a block of people vote on social issues right now -- the question SHOULD be "how will they spend our money" and "how can they best LIFT people OUT of government dependance"? Give me ANYBODY, democrat, republican, libertarian -- I don't care -- who will get EVERYONE invested in the system and spend OUR money responsibly.
I also question your statement on it's face.
"We cannot forget that one of the main reasons we have a deficit is due to the huge tax breaks provided to the very wealthy"
Really? And not the fact that SPENDING grew beyond what the government brought in year after year? You also might want to check the how much the Fed brought in each year -- and you'll find it's pretty much more than the previous year on virtually ALL accounts. Then check how much government SPENDING increased. You have some interesting "main reasons". I see that one of the "main reasons" we have a deficit is that we've spent more than we bring in at incredible rate. Am I wrong?
The above does not include indirect taxes either. I don't pay property taxes but my landlord does. He pays my property taxes with a portion of my rent check. So everyone in your town is contributing to property taxes. This funds things like schools, police, and fire departments.
Did you become this dense with lots of practice or were you born this way.
You have to go waay out of your way to not understand the comment was not in relation to Federal Income Taxes.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
What about zee Internet?
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
Because all of Bush's policies reverted the instant he left office. Jackass. You are either excellently trolling, or you don't understand how your own government works. Either way your point has absolutely no merit.
Oh, and it's intellectually dishonest to use the average deficit considering Bush started two wars which only got worse, and which continued after he left office. But hey, you've already demonstrated you don't give a shit about accuracy, just feeling right. No wonder the US is so fucked if people prefer feeling right to actually being correct.
I understand perfectly: you were using political rhetoric to drive home a point that was false.
If you'd intended to be honest you'd have said it was about Federal income taxes from the get-go.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
Xney that. You have to go waay out of your way to not understand the comment was with respect to Federal Income Tax.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
1. A solution for zero-G bone mass loss; e.g. artificial gravity or special resistance suits
2. A solution for lightweight radiation shielding
3. A solution for developing papilledema
4. A solution for landing large masses in thin but turbulent atmospheres; e.g. hypercone braking
5. Lightweight, flexible, pressurised space suits
6. In-Situ Resource Utilisation equipment for extracting resources out of Martian soil and air
7. Possibly a solution for the space logistics / extraterrestial fuel depots problem
8. Dust-resistant tools and lightweight, resilient habitats that can be maintained without access to terrestial support.
We need to solve these problems if we want to go. For each of these, there are probably several smaller problems to solve first in order to solve the big one. I don't know how they would translate to developments benefiting the average Earth citizen, but I can't believe that they would only benefit spaceflight in isolation from all the rest of technology. We would need at least new materials, engineering, medical and chemistry research.
there is a massive movement in this country that is opposing social investment (taxes)
Oh, "social investment" is the new term for taxes that Liberals (er, sorry "Progressives") prefer now?
it's not? It pays oldtimers with money the newcomers bring to the table and promises today's newcomers that their turn will come. It's very sensitive to demographic changes (as in going belly up when numbers of newcomers dwindle)
It's a government mandated ponzi scheme at its core, period.
here's the interview
EVERYONE should pay something. Even it it's just $10.
Better would be if everyone had to write a check to the Feds each month. Withholding hides what's happening to your income.
Someone may owe only $6000, had $7000 withheld and they are happy to get $1000 back as if it was a gift. If they had to write a check each month to the Feds for $500, attitudes on taxing would change overnight.
Any fair reading by anyone with a moderate intelligence level would have understood the context. You either didn't, or you just wanted to change the subject to avoid the point altogether.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
The reason the poor don't pay taxes and are recipients of extra services is that they are unable to afford to pay taxes and are unable to afford to live without receiving extra services. Consider someone working in a grocery store for minimum wage. Such a person makes an annual income of $15,080 ($7.25/hr * 40 hrs/wk * 52 wks/yr). How is such a person supposed to afford paying taxes? Viewed monthly, this income comes out to $1256.67/mo. In your local, could you afford to live on that income? Can you afford to pay rent or for a mortgage, to pay for electricity, heat, and water, to pay for food, on that income? Forget owning a car, public transit to work, health care, dental care, retirement, having children, cell phones, internet access, a computer, or other optional expenses. The poor are not able to afford taxes. They are not able to afford to live without extra services. If you want them to pay taxes, then you need to figure out a way to pay them more. Are you willing to see an substantial increase in food prices so that grocery stores can afford to pay their employees $14.50/hr and they can earn $30,160/yr? What is your proposal to allow these people to earn enough money to pay their expenses? What is your proposal to allow these people to earn enough money to support themselves and also pay taxes?
but companies like these http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_private_spaceflight_companies are able to do it many order of magnitudes cheaper.
Well let's see them actually fly something that carries people safely (which SpaceX may do soon) and be able to do enough times to build confidence in safety (this is basically unknown). And if you look closely much of these private spaceflight companies have only one customer, the government.
However, NASA is a big target for budget cutters because they are visible (policy makers can show public they are working to reduce cost of govt) and NASA is small (policy makers can make cuts without pissing off lobbyists who make a lot of money on govt contracts, i.e. war material). It's a shame though, trillion $$$ in dirt countries on other side of the world with nothing to show. You figure after ten years, Iraq and Afganistan should have interstate freeway system, electrification throughout, and clean running water for everyone.
mfwright@batnet.com
These "entitlements" are not what you believe. What is your source; so I can avoid being so mislead.
We PAY for Medicare and SS separate from the budget; its not an entitlement. WE PAY outside of taxes a fee of our income just as you can put away for retirement except far far better than you could do on your own (sadly, people forget all those who were screwed out of their savings just a while ago. SS is really conservative and is as secure as the nation itself; if it is weak so is the government and you have more to worry about... Privatizing SS would pretty much negate it's security and then one would reasonably consider killing it off because many people could invest better than the crooks in office.)
I dam well better get my Medicare and SS that I pay for!!! It is NOT part of the general fund and is NOT budgeted. In fact, when they steal from SS the law forces them to pay it back later; not that they should ever "borrow" from it but since we put in a bunch of lawyers who can make up into down and wrong into right there were protections put in place to attempt to protect from the bastards. It can only go so far; the whole system is broken so we have more problems than how it will break a perfectly good working service WE PAY FOR. We are "entitled" to it because we pay a fee for it our whole lives. It is not something we merely feel entitled to get for free like food stamps, welfare, corp bailouts, and bank bailouts -- those are general tax funds.
NASA has ZERO right to touch my SS; just as it can't touch my house I spent half my life paying for. I pay for services I expect to get. Some they get more than they payed in; that is ok because without it the cost to society is greater. People seem to forget many people DIE before collecting the services they pay for. My father wasn't far from retirement but he didn't make it and his fees cover multiple people who didn't make enough to pay in what they get back later on in retirement.
If SS payments are too low; then those without planning will suffer too greatly. The solution is to adapt the fees with the times; it is almost a flat tax structure already, if the fees were flat it would have no funding issues (unless the nation was actually broke; which it is not today despite the republicans desperately trying to cause that with a cycle of spending and H. HOVER "reforms")
The nerds (NASA) keep losing their school funds, while the jocks (Military) get overpriced new uniforms every month.
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
Thankyou Tim Berners-Lee, another Brit.
"How to survive on REALLY limited resources!" - Bingo, this is my theory anyways. Big business is scared to death of truly sustainable living.
So, the minimum effective tax rate in the US is now about 35%
Minimum, perhaps, but it's often much higher than that, even.
Corporation makes money, it's taxed.
Corporation pays you, it's taxed.
You receive payment, you're taxed.
You buy something, you're taxed.
You invest in something, even something as worthless to income generation as a savings account, you're taxed.
You die and leave your overtaxed money to your kids, it's taxed.
Not that I'm against taxes, mind you - but I'd sure like to know where the hell all that money is going toward. It sure as hell isn't going toward my defense, education of my fellow citizens, or fixing the potholes.
That's exactly what the Greeks are right to fear, that they're going to be asked to starve through proclamations of austerity. Was this not apparent to you?
Turns out capitalists like artificial shortages just as much as anybody else. They will gladly let somebody else suffer so they can feast.
A mother would be willing to do that for their child. Less so for somebody who is already fat and gluttonous, who even worked to defraud you in the first place, by getting you to sell them your seed corn with promises of flour that turned out to be mixed with plaster.
The wealthy are probably taxed plenty. If the government weren't trying to do everything, we wouldn't need to wring blood from a rock. Amazing that your answer to a corrupt, spendaholic wasteful government is to tax people more. Give the government more money - do you really think they use that to pay down the debt?
Existed before ... Doesn't anyone check Wikipedia anymore? It's so easy to dispel Space Nutter lies!! Oh, and yes, Teflon and Velcro existed before space too, as well as the wheel and the lever.
And yet he's STILL way better than the alternative would have been.
And blaming him for the vast and unprecidented obstruction from the other party? Hardly seems fair.
And he STILL kept a majority of his campaign promises in spite of the massive obstruction and utter lack of cooperation he's received.
And he REPEATEDLY said during the campaign that *WE* can... that *WE* are the people we've been waiting for... to bitch because he couldn't do everything single-handedly? Childish and petulant.
He saved the country from another great depression, saved the US Auto industry, ended Don't Ask/Don't Tell, passed decent (though hardly ideal) health-care reform, passed equal pay legislation for women, ended the Iraq war, is drawing down the Afghan war, killed Bin Laden, ousted Gadaffi, ....
And yet people still whine and bitch. No, he's far from perfect but imagine how much better things would be now if he'd had a "Loyal Opposition" to work with, rather than the treasonous snakes he's had to deal with, whose only goal is to see him (and by extension, this country) fail.
Put the blame where it belongs: Squarely on the GOP, FOX News, and all the rest of the shrieking, lying, propaganda-spewing, hateful, divisive right-wing political machine.
Most of people aren't paying income tax not because they are hording their money, but because they don't have enough it to consider it a strong investment in the system.
We need to enforce our social contract (the rules of our society, sometimes also called laws) in order to have stability. Looking around the world, I see societies using a mixture of three systems to enforce their contracts; violence, bribery, and what I will call "equity". Each system has its advantages and disadvantages. Violence is flexible and cheap to set up, but very expensive in the long term because of ongoing costs, like police and prisons, but also because of a large unproductive segment of society. Bribery; handouts, no taxes, welfare, etc, is more expensive to set up, not as flexible, but cheaper in the long term. After all, in the U.S. most welfare recipients get less money than it would require to imprison them. The third, equity, is the most expensive to set up and requires large transfers of wealth from the rich to the poor, but it also builds a stake in society for the poor and makes them more productive and hence is the cheapest for the long term. Examples of this are public education, government jobs programs, etc.
What you are suggesting is we lower the amount of bribery. Have you considered that a consequence of that is having to increase expenditure on another system of social stability? Are you proposing we raise taxes on the wealthy to build equity in the system or are you comfortable with requiring more police and prisons because less people feel they have an investment (or stake) in the system and, therefore, abide by its rules.
Like it or not, welfare has not been with human societies since antiquity because we are kind and loving. People have always, and continue, to buy stability with that money.
If you put a checkbox on the 1040 tax form that would let you keep your money instead of having it go to fund federal Mars missions, 99% of taxpayers would check it. Same would go for overseas wars, foreign aid, etc.
What's the point in them paying taxes when they're going to get that money back immediately? Unless you want to dramatically cut their benefits, raising their taxes would only increase the amount given back to them. Net result - no change.
I just don't get where this modern talking point came from.
There is also the fact you're phrasing it to look like they're not paying any taxes, I can't imagine that's an accident.
No, the wealthy are not taxed "plenty", whatever that means. Do the research. You'll see that you're defense is based on the propaganda of reality distortion fields.
Look at history, learn how the debt has been reduced in various administrations. See what was done to reduce the deficits. Understand the economic climates at the time that enabled deficit reduction. Then understand that there are vested interests in wealth protection that are reasonable, and many more that are not. We're becoming fiefdoms, just like the Middle Ages. Think about wealth protection, trusts, inheritance taxes, and how intergenerational wealth distribution causes new fiefs to emerge. That's one aspect. There are many.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
The argument I was responding to was that those who are vested in paying more or any taxes will vote for candidates who support tighter controls on spending. This is a common fallacy.
You are right that we have spent more than we take in at an incredible rate, however, it is the tax revenue that has dropped at a greater rate than the spending has increased. The tax revenue has dropped due to reduced economic activity and the massive tax cuts provided to the top income earners.
The reason that blue states tend to spend more in taxes than they take in federal funding is that they have a larger middle classes due to higher wages and benefits. This directly correlates to anti-union right to work states vs union states. As jobs flow to more non-union states, expect the number of people not paying taxes to increase, as companies move to a cheaper labor pool.
Just like the last two wars, none of the tax cuts were offset in the budget by spending cuts or other revenue increases. This leads to deficits. The Laffer curve has never realized the increased revenues predicted, which has left our country with massively escalating deficits every time we cut taxes. Maybe it is just too good to be true...
Back to the original point, raising taxes on the poor will have much more adverse economic impact than reversing the tax cuts on the wealthy.
The issue is not the percentage of people who don't earn enough to pay taxes, but rather why do so many earn so little that they are considered in poverty? Maybe the stagnation of the middle class and the massive migration of wealth from the middle class to the uber-wealthy has something to do with our growing poverty rate.
People are addicted to government handouts
Really? Do you think that if they had a chance to make a reasonable living in a reasonable job while paying some more tax they wouldn't jump at it? Most people don't want to live on benefits because that puts them at or below the poverty line. They want to be comfortable or even well off, it is just that life as it is now makes it almost impossible for them to do that.
It's called the poverty trap. When we try to do something about it more people end up paying taxes and we are all better off, when we ignore it more people fall back into a life of dependency on the state and stop paying taxes and we all lose out.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
has an effective tax rate less than even Oil Barons. Yeah, that seems progressive. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/11/21/BUIJ1M2635.DTL
Well, except that Obama actually has a pretty decent track-record on keeping his campaign promises.
And the GOP engaged in a completely unprecidented campaign of obstruction, with the sole desire to see Obama fail (and by extension, this country). They abandoned the "Loyal Opposition" to engage in words and deeds that bordered on treason. They did NOT negotiate in good faith, and sought only to have their way or the highway, in spite of LOSING the election. Never mind the CONSTANT spew of outright lies and fabrications and gross distortions from every right-wing, conservative, republican mouthpiece that exists ("Obama is coming to take your guns!", "Obama is a socialist!", "Obama is muslim!", "Obama is Kenyan!")... it's been outrageous.
So yes, I can blame the GOP for things not being better than they are. Because they are to blame. They not only got us into the mess all on their own (the Fiscal collapse of 2008 was entirely due to GOP policies, greed, deregulation, etc), but they've been working damn hard to ensure we don't get out on Obama's watch. They want him to take all the blame for everything bad, and none of the credit for anything good, regardless of whether he was involved in either, at all. They're been beyond petty, childish, and petulant. They're PUNISHING the country for not voting for them (regardless of the country having an excellent reason for kicking them to the curb).
Rutherford had nothing to do with nuclear power (fission). That was done Otto Hahn and Lise Meitner in Germany in the 30's. Meitner is the first person to grasp the process of U235 fission, and I wish she got more credit.
Hmm, this is a slightly strange thread. Several of the key comments are AC.
Trying to be clear - we're talking about why we can't go to Mars, because it's "too expensive", right?
NASA should advertise for people to make donations so they can fund research like this. If not enough if donated, then such research should not be done. It most definitely should not be funded via taxation - if people don't fund it voluntarily through donations then they are saying "we don't want this" and if they don't want it then why should the state force them to pay for it?
So, let me get this straight:
Your answer to the fact that many people won't agree on what to cut is to cut NOTHING, continue to raise expenditures, and then expect people to continue to pay an ever rising burden of taxes? INSANE.
I saw in your other post where you stated that we don't pay ENOUGH in taxes. All that tells me is that you are either a child (IE: Under 18) and pay no taxes, an overpaid college professor, a government employee who depends on other people paying more taxes to pay your salary, or a welfare bum. (or possibly a moron.)
Out here in real America (IE: Middle class taxpayer America) we are being squeezed from all sides. Taxes for this, fees for that, surcharges for this, regulations on that. Money money money. We are being nickle and dimed to DEATH.
ALL government monies come from one place. US. The taxpayers pay for everything. And we simply cannot afford all of this stuff anymore.
PS. We aren't interested in pleasing everyone. Simply in forcing the government to live within it's means.
Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
Obama Said it and its the truth. The rise of ATM's and other kiosh hardware/software are having a detrimental effect on employment. It is only going to get worse. The same thing happened with agriculture and the same thing happened/is happening with manufacturing. As machines take on more ability the need for human workers is decreased. The bank where I go has 10 teller windows in the building and only two tellers working. It was all they needed to take care of the 2-3 people who had to come inside. A lot of people use automatic deposit and debit cards/computers for access to their funds. No people needed.
This is one of the "secret" factors which are causing higher levels of unemployment. It is not all because people dont' want to work or because companies aren't hiring. A lot of positions simply don't esist any more. They have been superseded by technology.
For the record Obama wasn't bemoaning anything. He was simply stating a fact and then followed up with the corrolary. SInce those jobs are gone where are the next jobs coming from and what do people need to know to be employed.
The next big technological hit coming for workers. Automated fast food.
http://news.foodfacts.info/2006/02/automated-ordering-at-taco-bellkfc.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7335351.stm
Please look into the idea of a "basic income":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit
There are lots of reasons everyone should have a share of the annual production of the commons (especially because it was taken away from everyone years ago by privatization and playing favorites).
There's a lot of truth in what you say. The bottom 50% of households don't earn much so not a lot of taxes to be collected there. True. The bottom 20% are mostly college students, retirees, disabled people, etc. (though not "children", because households rarely consist of just children). True. If you have a full-time job you are not in the bottom 20%. There is really no good argument that the federal government should be collecting more revenue from households in the bottom two income quinitles.
Here you're definitely confused. Austerity means reducing their deficits in order to be allowed to keep borrowing at reasonable interest rates. The alternative is effectively bankruptcy ("screw this"). This would require them to balance their budget overnight, because few would be willing to lend to them. That is "screw this" would require much deeper spending cuts than "austerity". That's why Greece has chosen "austerity" over "screw this".
It may be tough for the average citizen to get a grasp on what the debt level means. Sure $51,000 per man, woman, and child ($204,000 for a family of four) may sound like a lot, but is it really a problem? Well, the people who have the best grasp on the state of the U.S. economy and the Federal budget almost unanimously agree that it is essential that we bring the debt under control to ensure future economic stability. The CBO and the Fed have both consistently made statements favoring policies that would move deficits to stable and low levels (say 2% of GDP).
In 2011 about two-thirds of the Federal budget (excluding interest on the debt) went to transfer programs: Social Security(726bn), Medicare(574bn), Medicaid(268bn), Other Income Security Programs(352bn), Other Discretionary Outlays for Health, Income Security, and Education(~200bn). You could argue that a lot of that money doesn't go to the poor per se. But the intent of all of those programs is to transfer money from people with higher incomes to those with lower. I know a dollar isn't what it used to be, but two trillion of them seem to be more than a drop in the bucket.
Discussions of fiscal sustainability should not be polarized polemical disputes that end with references to killing people. Bringing the budget under control is not a liberal or conservative thing. It's in all of our best interests. If you want to have transfer programs, fine. Then fund transfer programs. Figure out how to sustainably finance your programs for the poor. Because if you just run up debts until interest payments on the federal debt are squeezing the growth out of the economy, those programs will be substantially reduced (out of necessity). Greece is showing us that no amount of protest can make new goods and services appear out of thin air. We can only solve this problem with serious discussion and a willingness to make tough decisions. We need to sort out our priorities and then make plan to pay for them. But anyone who says "screw fiscal responsibility" is charting a road to disaster.
"A billion here, a billion there, and soon you are talking real money." We have a massive budget deficit, everything should be looking at big cuts, but the "it's only a small amount relative to the wars" applies to both good and bad spending and cuts, even if small on their own, can add up to big savings.
As we all know American politics, left or right, is deeply into the pockets of Hollywood.
Clearly this idea has come from the *iaa and they convinced the White House they can make some really good looking movies about trips to Mars, all without any tax money involved!
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
(bold emphasis mine)
Egads this drives me nuts.
Let me clue you in on something. Social programs are NOT INVESTMENTS. They are EXPENDITURES. Expenditures that we can no longer afford.
Simply put, the social programs need to be drastically reduced, and the government needs to be forced to go on Zero Base budgeting. We don't have the money, even if the government confiscates every last dime from every American citizen and company, to pay for these programs anymore. We're done.
The Progressive dream of the all-encompassing Nanny State is over and it's time to wake up.
Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
Oh look it's this lie again. Payroll tax. Sales tax. The "46% pay no tax" myth comes from income tax only.
How is it a lie when the guy that mentioned it specifically said "no income tax."? Do you understand the meaning of "to lie"? Because your statement is much closer to lying than the one you are complaining about. Maybe it's a reading comprehension problem because you falsely assume people with a different point of view than your are morons, and so couldn't possibly make a factual statement, so you didn't even bother reading it, just saw what you wanted to see and attacked!
Tax rates have gone down. Your ruse of "ever rising burden of taxes" is in fact, a sham for most income rates in the United States today, Feb 14th, 2012.
We don't pay enough taxes. I'm a responsible adult, and believe that given a civil attitude, government should work for all of its constituents. I'm an entrepreneur, own my own business, and have not seen a W2 in fourteen years. 100% of my income is 1099, and it's probably more than yours. I'm a capitalist, and not a socialist. I'm not a 1%er.
Yes, taxes seem like death by a thousand cuts. Yes, it needs to be more equitable, but no one can agree what equitable is, unless it's someone else paying. All government monies do not come from one place, the US, as you contend. US taxpayers don't pay for everything-- philanthropy in the US is wonderful. Charity is great, and I give until it hurts, and then give again. You do as you see fit. The reality of the world is that we work for some of our personal gain, but very much a lot for the gain of others. And yes, it could be a lot less bereft of inequity.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Maybe a better idea: Have the CIA fund a Mars program... in Iran! And then be like "Aaah, we can't let those bad people beat us to Mars!" And suddenly, Republicans will be all into Nasa.
BUT a great leader like Regan, or Clinton just stared down other politicians. Obama makes bold statments and then backs off in a major way.
What makes you think that Obama is honest about those bold statements? If a politician makes a bold statement about (a popular) IssueA and then allows IssueA to fail without a fight, there are actually three possible conclusions.
1. The politician wanted the issue to pass.
2. The politician didn't care about issue either way.
3. The politician wanted the issue to fail, but thought they'd be more popular claiming to be for it.
You immediately jump to conclusion #1. Based on the number of compromises that have happened in the recent years, I wonder if #2 and #3 are not more appropriate here. There had been on-the-record incidents (such as warrant-less surveillance) where Obama campaigned on "never supporting it", but went with it anyway.
Wrong. Spending has increased far, far more than population growth+inflation, and thus far beyond the most rosy estimates of revenue. Yeah, it's a simple formula, but a useful one to show that we have spending problem.
I would counter with this:
"So what?"
So what that ATMs are putting bank tellers out of work. So what that automation has replaced Assembly line work. SO WHAT?
The march of technology has ALWAYS caused market disruption. What do you think happened to the Buggy Whip makers when Automobiles came around? Or the Steam industry when Internal Combustion engines arrived on the scene? You don't think there was disruption? Of course there was. Millions lost their jobs. Of course, those same millions were soon employed in the new industries, and in the THOUSANDS of ancillary industries that popped up around the new technologies.
This is what is called "Creative Destruction". The ability of a new technology to so disrupt the market that the old technology (and the companies that sold it) either change, or are destroyed. It's happened before, it will happen again.
Attempting to stop it only hurts everyone, by both wasting taxpayer money propping up an outdated product or business and by denying people the new technology.
Technology and time marches on. You can't stop it and the more the government meddles, the more miserable we all are.
Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
You move too many variables at once, and that's why your math isn't coming out well. Best of luck.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
What does that have to do with the Internet?
I dunno dude, without tang you and i wouldn't be here
So that I don't get charged with misquoting, just read the wikiquote article yourselves:
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Alexander_Fraser_Tytler
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
When did the Feds implement a sales and property tax...idiot.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
You still don't get it, do you? Attitudes like your are why people like me are squeezed from all sides just trying to get ahead.
I seriously doubt your are an entrepreneur, your attitude is very much the opposite of anyone who has had to work significant hours for no pay to get a business off the ground. You sound like someone who is totally disconnected from the reality of what us middle class people experience.
Perhaps for YOU taxes have gone down, but mine have gone UP. Not just the direct taxes I pay, but all the indirect ones. The cost of gas at the pump that has gone up because the government has FOR YEARS prevented us from drilling for our own oil. The cost of groceries at the store that keeps going up because of the cost of fuel to produce and transport it. All the little ancillary costs that are ultimately tied back to the cost of government. A government that is TOO LARGE and tries to do too many things.
Social program expenditures are over 60% of our national budget. You talk about the "Gain of others" and "taking care of people" as though this money just comes from the air. That's SOCIALIST talk. Not Capitalist language. A Capitalist would tell people to go out and invest or spend their own money, rather than have it processed through the "broken glass fallacy" government bureaucracy where the lion's share of the money goes to pay for government, not for helping other people.
If you give to charity, great! So do I. (What little I have available) would it not be better to have private charitable organizations who are FAR more efficient handle the work of helping people out, and have our government do only what it is Constitutionally constrained to do?
I'm glad that you want to spend money to help people, but you need to understand that it is NOT CHARITY to force people to pay higher taxes to help others. That's just theft.
Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
Yeah, I said it. Thanks to us - you, me, and all the other retards that let these guys decide where to spend our money, we'll soon be behind China, Japan, and even India in space exploration. Pretty soon, if you want to be anything worthwhile, you better learn Chinese.
Not going to happen. Why do you think they implemented it this way to begin with?
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
The grandparent is obviously one of those leftwinger fools that constantly object to language and dictionaries.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
If you make $25,000, you should pay 1% (right now it's zero -- and often they get more money BACK than they actually PAID)
That's only if you have dependents. If you're single you will pay taxes on 25k. Do you really think someone making 25K with a family should pay taxes?
I have a comment that explains that there is no such thing as an 'income tax', it's a ruse. There are only 'profit' taxes, and individuals have no profits to pay any of that.
You can't handle the truth.
In the last 25 years, Social Security has collected more in taxes than it has paid out. The Social Security Trust fund currently stands at $ 2.4 trillion in assets. Current actuarial projections are for it to continue to pay obligations until 2037. Minor adjustments (such as increasing the wage base) can make it viable much longer.
Much different than a ponzi scheme.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Tell me it's wrong to be dependent when you're past your prime, when you're just a child, or where through, more than likely no fault of your own, you can't manage much of anything in life?
- sure it's wrong. It's not a 'collective' problem that forces individuals into becoming slaves to that system for no fault of their own.
Vote with our feet, that's what we must do to avoid being put into this position of perpetual slavery by the socialist propaganda.
You can't handle the truth.
Space exploration is where most of our military science came from in the first place.
We come in peace, shoot to kill, shoot to kill. - Star Trekin
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
Well said.
/sarc
Despite the logical arguments comparing the cost of a Mars trip to the cost of being in several wars, the war on drugs, bailouts, etc.; and despite that some feel science may have some kind of value to society; the best thing the legislators can do is to pray about it. If God wants them to fund science, he will give them some kind of sign. Science gave us all kinds of heresies. The heliocentric view. Evolution. And now birth control. Don't people realize that birth control is not 100% effective? If it isn't 100% effective, then people should not use it. Don't get me started on abortions for rape victims. Don't people realize that it is morally wrong not to be as sexually frustrated as their religious leaders?
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
What..are you in fifth grade?
Even a fifth grader understands context...and this context is Federal Income Tax.
Fucking moron.
Most people at some time in their lifetimes will accept some kind of assistance from the federal government.
And how much of this need is caused by the federal government taking so much of my life's earnings. This turns into a circular argument. The Feds force people into poverty, and then say they can't complain about federal waste because they accepted federal assistance (funded by the feds making it so that I needed the assistance).
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Rich people will always do the things that make people rich.
Poor people will always do the things that make people poor.
Once the poor people start doing what the rich people do, they're not so poor anymore. I've watched this play out around me so many times it's nauseating.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
I am not saying its a bad thing. I am saying that Obama told the truth on that matter. He is correct.
The question is really what are you going to do with all the people who don't have jobs anymore simply because technology took the jobs. Eventually, it is going to bring the economic system we have to its knees because people are necessary for the greatest majority of the system. You can't simply teach them all to create the systems because everyone isn't meant to be a technician, a programmer, an engineer or a scientist. The end of the system equals most people without productive employment and a system where they don't have a place. Either you just let them die or you accept the full impact. The full impact being millions, if not billions, of people without anything to do, but still needing food, shelter, clothing, education, medical care and all the rest. Capitalism simply isn't designed to deal with it and shouldn't be expected to. After all, its roots are from a time period when none of these things were possible and humans were the source of all the labor and energy which went into production.
Your frustrated attitude is shared by others, and I'm squeezed, too. You can let your life be frustrated in this way, or cut away the things that don't matter until you find what does. Personally, my taxes have gone up a bit. Fine. I pay them.
Gas and oil? I have a motorcycle and a car with great MPG. There's a nice van that doubles as an RV. I ride a bike when I can. Walk if I'm allowed. I chose those circumstances to cut my overhead.
The capitalist-socialist argument that you make isn't bound in either fact or in history. You have listened to the propaganda, and swallowed it whole. You are therefore constrained by it, and your anger and frustration are fueled by it. This is your choice. There are other choices available.
I pay my dues, my taxes, and gladly. I live in a great country. It has its problems. We work through them, one at a time. We take care of our own, and have been generous enough to take care of others. That means, you and your family, too. Mine has been gifted with good luck and a few brains, and made choices that had return on their value-- in a genuinely capitalistic sense. Government has grown large in some areas, but is woefully lacking in others. Slowly, the expenditures related to military conflict will go down. We need to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, because it's fed the motivation to go to war-- not Afghanistan, but certainly Iraq. Lots of American blood was lost more to insure oil supplies than Middle Eastern peace. The swords are rattling again, against Iran-- again, and it doesn't bode well for us.
I don't want to give government sustenance in the form of new Cadillacs; but people need to be able to live, and some of them got there through really tough luck. I'm not here to judge them, only to bring up the bottom to a human level.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
True, but that doesnt pay, in theory, for NASA.
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
Ah, a defender of the Neo-Anarchic Libertarian Individualist agenda. Dependence is slavery! The only way to escape is to be free of others, regardless of how you might suffer, you'll surely be better without being weakened by dependence!
Maybe you hate civilization and society because you think you'd personally benefit, but the whole is another matter. But to you, all that matters is that you get the choice! Damn the rest!
Sorry, but it's not workable to get everybody's free and absolute consent to everything. The best we can hope for is you not having enough capacity to screw things up too badly for the rest of us.
No, they wouldn't. The introduction of that much Platinum would make Platinum cheaper than Copper. Too much supply + too little demand = worthless. They can only truly profit by keeping supplies scarce. The same reason the corporations oppose sustainable fuels and support intellectual property rules.
Oh, without a doubt, you're right. It's my opinion that one way or another we're going to collectively have to take a spanking. That should rightfully be across all areas of government, even social programs and entitlements. AND, we should raise taxes, close loopholes, increase taxes on the rich/investors, etc. Basically, spend less and make more.
In my house we are always saying how "every little bit helps". If we bring in an extra $20 somehow, or if we spend $20 less a month. It all adds up. So, cutting $10 billion from Nasa, when combined with other cuts, adds up to a net positive for our bottom line.... eventually. But other areas should also give.
I think you meant "Thank you, DARPA" (most definitely not British).
No, they wouldn't. The introduction of that much Platinum would make Platinum cheaper than Copper. Too much supply + too little demand = worthless. They can only truly profit by keeping supplies scarce. The same reason the corporations oppose sustainable fuels and support intellectual property rules.
Then it wouldn't pay for itself, would it?
Why don't you add a rant about funny looking orneriness and terrorists. You wouldn't want to miss any of the teabagger talking points, would you?
but you sound like a spoiled kid who doesn't want to actually do his fair share in supporting the society that you so readily leach off of, so I'm sure that facts like that don't really matter to you do they kid.
providing medical care , which lowers costs, would cause any sort of collapse. I'm afraid that while you enjoy the idea of old and sick simply dying so you don't have to take any social responsibility for them, it tends to get more expensive in the long run.
As long as you're willing to tie social security and minimum wage to the highest income at the same ratio, I'm all for it.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
You do realize that there will always be a bottom tax bracket?
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
No. I'm willing to bet you've never made anywhere near as low as $25,000 in your adult life, otherwise you'd know what $250 means to them. They spend all of their money. ALL of it. That's why it's called living paycheck to paycheck. My in-laws make slightly less than that in rural Ohio, and those "tax windfalls" mean things like replacing a decades old, leaky refrigerator, or fixing a car that's been broken down in front of their house for months (yes, those are what their last two tax refunds went to). All it takes is one thing in their century-old house to break and cause damage, and they're down to one meal a day for a few weeks. Pretty much the only "luxury" they've got is cable internet, but my mother-in-law occasionally sells things so even that is a pretty much a necessity these days. There is literally nothing they could cut that would make $21/month anything other than a hardship for them.
And yet, people like my in-laws do way more for the economy per dollar income than the rich. Raising taxes on them is bad for everybody.
Yeah, your picture isn't so easy to condemn when you actually look at the people, not your manufactured strawman of people who you think are lazy pond-suckers.
Look at them? I'm friggin' related to 'em. Many are lazy pond-suckers. I've got a cousin with 4 kids, all with different daddies. Says she wants to have 8!! And she's working hard to get there. I would say that my strawman can beat-up your strawman.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Sure it would. It would pay for itself so well that it wouldn't be worth it. There just wouldn't be any profit in it.
Hmm, this is a slightly strange thread. Several of the key comments are AC.
Trying to be clear - we're talking about why we can't go to Mars, because it's "too expensive", right?
NASA should advertise for people to make donations so they can fund research like this. If not enough if donated, then such research should not be done. It most definitely should not be funded via taxation - if people don't fund it voluntarily through donations then they are saying "we don't want this" and if they don't want it then why should the state force them to pay for it?
Ah yes, catering only to the whims of those with money. Excellent idea! You should be a politician, you'll fit right in. :)
Once you factor in sales, payroll, income and capital gains taxes, those 46% pay a higher rate than Mitt Romney. Full stop.
(This has not been true the past few years with the payroll tax holiday, but it will be again soon and was when the economy was thriving.)
Your ad here. Ask me how!
Great, you have one cousin.
How does that measure up to the 47 senior citizens at the local nursing home?
Your spin does not bring back a prematurely terminated shuttle program nor improve the anemic private sector.
Our space technology was spawned from Nazi military technology. .
FTFY
"The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill
http://news.investors.com/Article/575363/201106141840/Beatable-And-He-Knows-It.htm Just did a quick search... although I'm not sure if he said it in jest or not.
My father-in-law worked for the state and tried the same BS argument on me. He'd tell me he pays taxes, too. I then pointed out that as an employee of the state, he's paying himself. I wish the taxes I paid went back into my own pocket.
Besides, there's little difference between paying a tax on money received from the government and paying no tax on less money received from the government.
It's not a tax if you're paying it with your earned income tax credit, food stamps, etc. In actuality the folks at the bottom receive more in benefits than they put in in taxes. That needs to stop.
In any organization, there are basically two optimization games being played at any given moment: The long-term game, and the short-term game. In general charting an optimal course is hard, both because the long game is very hard to play, and because how well you play the short game affects your long game. The negative effects are well-known: witness big business' almost being straightjacketed to quarterly and yearly forecasts. The consequences of this? A tendency to play for short-term gain at the expense of foreseeable long-term ruin.
... This is the long term goal. But how long term? I think it's not unreasonable to estimate that it will be a hundred years. Now, the US is less than 250 years old. A hundred years is a VERY long time. A hundred years ago, it was 1912, and WW1 (yes, 1) was more than two years off.
... will have largely been wasted, spent building castles in the sky.
... just as much as you do. But it just doesn't make sense, given the realities of enormous deficits, and a political process paralyzed by gridlock.
But also witness Netflix shooting their feet off at the knees. Why did that happen? They played too much in favor of the long game, essentially. Far enough down the road, it will make as much sense to be in the DVD-by-mail business as it currently makes to be in the DVD-by-rental-store business. The problem is, their long-term plays were premature, and very harmful to the short-term game.
So, space exploration. Everyone agrees that it's very important, right? But it's a long-term game, with long-term payoffs. Possibly very long term. The true maturation of space exploration - the transformation from mankind's journey into space being a herculean endeavor, funded at considerable expense by entire nations - into the space industry, undertaken by various firms for different businesses
Meanwhile, there is a very real chance the financial system underpinning the entire world economy could implode within a few decades. If that happens, every penny that has ever been spent on long-term goals with a maturation significantly further into the future than this
So it makes sense to cut the Mars stuff. I want to know what kind of life is on Europa, or Mars, or wherever else
Your analogy to the broken window fallacy isn't valid for taxing and spending in general, and I'm not sure it is even applicable to the welfare question (what exactly gets destroyed the way the window does when it comes to welfare?). Yes, business owners are forced to distribute some of their profit to others due to taxes, but it isn't the same sort of futile cycle when the spending isn't being spurred by destruction.
As for the idea that spending tax money on the economy necessarily detracts from it, the interstate highway system was built via taxing and spending. Did it only "appear" to make the economy stronger? Or would the economy have actually grown more if only state and county roads existed? Oh, wait, it turns out state and county roads are built by taxing and spending, too? Clearly, the optimal solution for the economy is for private businesses to simply build roads as they need them -- if someone else wants to use a road, you can just pay a toll to the company that owns it. Sure, a toll in this case is money you pay to an outside entity, but at least you don't *have to* pay it like taxes. Oh, wait, you want to leave your house and get food? I guess you *will* have to pay that toll, unless you want to starve; either that or build your own road to the grocery store. Or just go gather your food in the woods.
Yes, spending is too high in some areas, but your claim that in general taxing and spending only create the "appearance" of growth while actually detracting from the economy? That idea is ridiculous on its face if you bother to pay the slightest bit of attention to reality. Large parts of modern civilization only exist because of taxing and spending. Certainly there are sectors of the economy where government spending may be wasteful, but you clearly can't treat that like a general principle -- you have to deal with it on case by case basis.
"I'm willing to bet you've never made anywhere near as low as $25,000 in your adult life, otherwise you'd know what $250 means to them."
You would lose that bet. I've even been homeless.
Oooh, a just-world theorist.
I've watched an extremely responsible friend lose her job, experience a major medical condition, and have her entire (large) savings evaporate in costs of follow-up care.
I've seen people whose large retirement funds disappeared when the bubble burst, people who had unexpected court cases against them (either criminal or civil), people who developed a disability whose employers found a way to skirt the laws around accommodation (or, in another case, went out of business for unrelated reasons).
Sometimes bad things happen to good people. I'm in a pretty good place myself right now, but "there for but the grace of God go I" is a lesson it's far too easy to learn the hard way.
Certainly there will always be a bottom bracket, but do mind the gap.
Looking at how the wealth concentration ratio matches with middle-class prosperity, and the direction those metrics are going in now, leads to some concerning conclusions.
yes, government can make things last longer than they would otherwise have. Participation in this particular ponzi scheme is not voluntary. Besides ponzi schemes don't fail right off the bat, so having enough money up to a given date does not make something not-a-ponzi.
There is no fund, there is no money with your name on it. The money is spent as soon as it's collected. That surplus you speak of was raided and pillaged long time ago and these so called assets are all government IOUs which will be paid with shitload of treasuries (borrowed or printed money). The taxpayer is on the hook either way - higher taxation or diluted paycheck.
ok, the US may not look that bad with global reserve currency and fertility rate of 2.1 and shit. It will take a while. Let's take Poland, average country with rather good economic growth - her Social Security is over $20B in the red every single year (38M people) AND on top of that the fertility rate is less than 1.30 TODAY. Good luck being 30 today and expecting anything in 30 years when there are 3 retired old farts for every person in active workforce.
It's nothing but a ponzi and the difference between Poland and the US is just few numbers, mechanics are the same.
What are you talking about? The minimum rate is 10% and the standard deduction is $5,950 (for singles). And there's no EITC if you're under a certain age, I think it's 25.
It's not a lie
Sales tax - this is a state tax that provides zero revenue (not a single penny) to the federal government
Payroll tax - this is your contribution to Social Security which, for decades, liberals have insisted was not a tax but actually a contribution to your own retirement plan
And, because some Obama drone will eventually raise the issue, Property tax (payed by owners of residences and arguably passed-on to renters) is also not a source of revenue to the federal government. (Property taxes are state and local matters)
It is absolutely true that nearly half of all Americans now pay absolutely nothing to the federal government for things like the national defense (one of the few things the government does that the Constitution actually requires it to do), the national parks, the courts, the diplomats, the space program, the FDA, the EPA, NIST, DOE, FAA, FCC, NTSB, etc.
Personally, I'd like to see the government get out of many of the things it is involved in (and therefore I'd like to see nobody taxed to support them) but It's rather amusing to me that many of the people who want the government involved in everything are simultaneously avoiding paying for any of it while ignorantly insisting that they are paying more than their "fair share" (i.e. somebody else who actually is paying should pay even more than he is)
For his first two years in office, Obama and the Democrats controlled the White House, the House of Representatives (by nearly 2-to-1 margins... which means they controlled everything including schedules, debates, everything), and the Senate (by a fillibuster-proof majority... which means the Republicans lacked the power to block anything in the Senate. If the Republicans tried to stop anything, Harry Reid could call a quick vote and with his super-majority he would win).
This means that for his first two years in office Obama, aided by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, could do ANYTHING he wanted and the Republicans were powerless to stop him. This is a simple fact that his more liberal fanboys simply do not want to face. If he did not do some particular thing for you during that time period, then he did not have it as a priority. The fanboys need to grow-up. Obama and his campaign people want you to blame the Republicans; they are counting on you Hating the Republicans and not thinking things through enough to hold him accountable for his own actions. The man spent $800+ Billion dollars on that 2009 stimulus bill (ALL of which was borrowed money which you will pay interest on for the rest of your life), NONE of which went to hiring scientists, engineers and technicians for Mars missions, or Manned spaceflight, or aeronautics research, etc. Hell, even keeping space shuttles flying (3 or 4 missions a year) would have only been a $3 billion dollar cost. Ask yourself a question: If he did not do something for you when he had total power... how will he do it when he lacks total power? Obama and his team do not want you to ask that question, because they want to be re-elected to keep their jobs for another 4 years. 4 more years of pay and benefits, fatter resumes, followed by books deals, speaking tours, jobs on corporate boards or at universities, etc.
There's another little question they don't want you to ask: We used to fly several space shuttles per year, and during the Bush years the agency was simultaneously developing a space capsule (Orion) and a rocket for it (Ares I). Obama cancelled Constellation, though Congress forced him to keep the Orion Capsule (now renamed "MPCV") and demanded he build a new rocket (named "SLS") but remember that we are no longer flying the shuttles and NASA's budget is actually higher now than it was several years ago........ so where is the money going? We used to be developing rockets, flying shuttles, AND launching Mars missions, but now we are slow-walking the rocket development, storing shuttles, and cancelling Mars on essentially the same budgets
What's with the constant parrotting of "addiction"? Is that some kind of new, Fox-sponsored, conservative talking point when it comes to fucking the poor?
we are going to sit here in the grave of a planet we are digging, kill each other, and slowly be choked to death from our own shit and effluent which we so handily ignore.
Let humanity die. There is no future for us. We are still nothing more than slightly more intelligent animals whose leaders are power-hungy, corrupt, criminal scum; while the population idly sits by and lets us decline into oppression again and again.
You're right... the meltdown hit in 2008 when President Obama was a US Senator and Vice president Biden was also a US Senator.... but it actually started long before that with the mortgage derivatives moving through the government sponsored entities Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in a wild and uncontrolled manner. Sadly, as GSE's Fannie and Freddie were not executive branch entities... the President had no authority over them, they were overseen by congress and had an implicit guarantee of access to the taxpayers' money. In 2007, the Bush administration was worried about what was going on at Fannie and Freddie but they had no legal authority to do anything about it.... so they went to congress to ask for the legal authority to regulate Fannie and Freddie. The Democrats, who controlled the senate, voted unanimously (for those of you who were edumacated by unionized publik skool teachers, this means "all the Democrats in the Senate including Obama and Biden") voted to not to let the Bush administration regulate the behaviour of Fannie and Freddie. If you are paying attention to history at this point, you realize that Bush (who has many OTHER faults) had NO VOTE on the Fannie and Freddie mess, but Obama and Biden each had a vote before the meltdown and they both voted in a way that led to the meltdown. They also, as US Senators, had access to the same budget and economic data as Bush (which makes it laughable now that they keep insisting the meltdown was deeper than they were aware of when they were elected). Over in the House of Representatives where the Democrats were in control, Barney Frank actually lambasted the Bush administration officials who said trouble was brewing at Fannie and Freddie; Frank insisted that everything was just fine at Fannie and Freddie (which is why he later ended-up on national TV in a shouting fest with TV bloviator Bill OReilly... probably on youtube somewhere)
I'd have thought splitting the atom has rather crucial to fission based nuclear power. Rutherford proved it could be done and then others developed his work to create it in a stable sustainable environment.
Just as Faraday demonstrated the link between magnetism and electricity. It took others (Tesla, Westinghouse, Edison) to actual make it functional and usable.
Which was based on US technology researched by Goddard outside of military science.
Goddard's first liquid fueled, gyroscopically controlled rocket was launched in 1926. So while the US space launch capability was kicked into overdrive by the captured V-2 specialists - their work was based on stolen/borrowed/inspired tech from the USA. So while the V-2 is a military development, the core technologies were developed outside of military science.
To quote you... so what?
The problem, as I see it, is that "close to half our population" is so poor they don't pay income taxes -- in short, that too much of our middle class has fallen into poverty. If you look at the US's wealth distribution mix, we were at an extremely healthy place in the late 70s and since then it's completely gone to hell -- since 1979 the top 1% have gotten vastly richer (upwards of 120%), the top 20% have gotten somewhat richer (about 25%), and everyone else is poorer -- the bottom 20% by 30%.
You want more people to be a part of the tax base? Let's fix the wealth distribution problem and get back to where we have a healthy and productive middle class.
I know this comment is a day late, but I thought it was a good coincidence that an article popped up in my browser this morning that addresses this. How much federal aid goes to the nonworking poor? That seems a question relevant to your statement "The 50%+ who are in love with government hand-outs and have forgotten how to provide for themselves are dependent."
Well, here's a straightforward answer;
http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/02/how-much-do-we-spend-nonworking-poor
And just to highlight the meat of it;
"The answer: about 10 percent of all federal welfare spending. How did they come up with that? CBPP's methodology uses census data to figure out exactly where program dollars are going, but you can get pretty much the same answer using a simpler, easier-to-understand technique. Step One is to list every federal welfare program. Step Two is to deduct spending on the elderly, blind, and seriously disabled. That's Social Security, Medicare, SSI, and about two-thirds of Medicaid. Step Three is to deduct spending that goes to the working poor. That's unemployment compensation, EITC, and child tax credits. Step Four is to add up the rest. This overstates how much goes to the nonworking poor, since these programs are open to both working and nonworking families, but it gives you a rough idea.
It comes to about $235 billion, the bulk of which is SNAP (formerly food stamps) and about one-third of Medicaid. That's 12 percent of all federal welfare spending and about 6 percent of the whole federal budget. Once you account for the fact that some of these program dollars go to the working poor, you end up with CBPP's estimate of 10 percent, or about 5 percent of the whole federal budget.
Is that too much? I guess you have to decide for yourself. But I'll bet most people think we spend a lot more than 5 percent of the federal budget on this stuff."
...are afraid to fix the fucked-up tax code where 46% pay no income tax at all.
You realize that those 46% still pay lots of other kinds of taxes? E.g. sales taxes, excise taxes, property taxes (latently, through their rent - surely the landlord passes on his property taxes to his tenants), etc. The idea that half of Americans don't pay taxes is a detestable myth/propaganda.
Downmodding is the refuge of the weak. Don't downmod, make a better argument!
My point is the flip is about to occur. More people will be riding the train then shoveling the coal. And those freeloaders vote.
Yeah, like votes still count for anything...
Downmodding is the refuge of the weak. Don't downmod, make a better argument!
that would be fine if wealth and income were divided more fairly. people on public assistance is growing rapidly. most people can barely survive. then you want to tax them? why? divide the nations wealth up better and it's fine. keep squeezing the poor and they'll come for your heads one day.
the one penney thing was brought into play by Paul or one of them some time back and to me it made absolutely perfect sense.This was also aimed at everyone and by everyone I mean everyone including the president,house,senate,every single person in this country that has a job.That adds up to one hell of a lot of money after a year.As far as the military,I'm a disabled nam vet(100 percent)Obooboo wants to close bases and limit pay raises to our military personell.Here's the scoop,if he was to be allowed to do this,we would soon be without a military completely.One thing you never do is to mess with anyone in the military's pay.This guy is about as dumb as they come.Everything he has done and or attempted to do has hurt us and nothing he's done has helped us.Fortunately he will soon be gone and once he and his flunky admin is gone we will start to heal and build ourselves back up
No. You create a system that forces them to be dependent -- then you take THAT away and they'll come for your heads. When someone votes for someone who supports Federal Program "X" -- yet pays no Federal taxes, he has no incentive to question if "X" is REALLY needed and how it will get funded.
What you have here is a system where people, as you say, are on public assistance more and more. And the money to pay for it is getting less and less. Seriously, if you confiscate ALL wealth in the US, do you REALLY think that would solve the problem? You;ll buy yourself an extra few years -- and devastate the economy doing it. Remember -- the net worth of the 400 wealthiest people in the US adds up to ~$1 trillion. That would BARELY pay for one year of overspending (if we did about 200 million in cuts). Good luck next year grabbing the next 400's wealth...it'll be a small FRACTION of that.
Thought I'd also add this:
If someone's living on $17000 somehow -- the $25000 can live without $21 a month. If someone's living on $12000, the $17000 can live without the extra $14 per day. Etc. When someone says "fair share", I cringe people so many pay zero. Paying zero is not fair. My complete tax burden every year is around 40%-50% (between state, local, property, and fed) of my yearly income. I become REALLY testy when it approaches and passes 50%.
I know exactly how much every dollar I have means to me -- and I've crawled up from literally nothing to what I have now (which isn't anything special).
What Rutherford did was that he recognized that atoms have heavy, tiny nuclei and a cloud of electrons that orbits them. He didn't "split atoms" in any interesting sense. I mean, we all remove electrons from atoms. That's called chemistry. I don't know who taught you "Rutherford split the atom" but you should really revisit that.
From my perspective, the only VALID reason to pay no FEDERAL INCOME tax is that they have no INCOME.
Um, for the most part, these people don't have income. It is retirees, the young (still in school), and disabled.
People shouldn't get more back as a tax RETURN than they actually pay in taxes.
This is true of NO ONE.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
How about, you don't bring it back? Why bother, it is more useful in orbit than down here.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Do you propose bringing into Earth orbit? Yeah, that wouldn't be cheap. Or controversial. Or dangerous.
He also worked out that the heavy nuclei is made up of particles and identified the proton as the nuclei of hydrogen - which is why he named it 'proton' after 'protos' - the first. He also identified alpha particles as helium nuclei. Taking protons from the nuclei is a little different than stripping electrons in chemistry in a test tube.
http://www.manhattanrarebooks-science.com/rutherford1919.htm
"We must conclude that the nitrogen atom is disintegrated under the intense forces developed in a close collision with a swift alpha particle, and that the hydrogen atom which is liberated formed a constituent part of the nitrogen nucleus." -Ernest Rutherford
FIRST EDITION of Ernest Rutherford's announcement of the splitting of the atom and the discovery of the proton.
Cockcroft & Walton used high voltage accelerators to shoot protons to split lithium which is the first deliberate "splitting" to continue the work started by Rutherford.
I said leave it in orbit. Whatever orbit it is in (everything in space is in an orbit). Build what you need in space from within space, not from Earth.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
So now you have an asteroid full of titanium. To use it, you have to move all kinds of stuff out to its orbit. Sounds financially sound.