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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?
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!
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.
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.
Space exploration is where most of our military science came from in the first place.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
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.
... 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.
Could it be you are mis-informed?
a) NASA didn't expend the $$$ developing the pen
b) It was needed because of fears that a broken pencil lead could cause damage to sensitive and life-depending machinery.
c) Americans used pencils too, at first. Then when the pen was developed the Russians used it as well...
http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/spacepen.asp
...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!
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.
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);
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
You should read the article, but then you'd have to stop mindlessly bitching about things Obama hasn't done. Damn you're funny. Obama's pledged far more support towards scientific research than you seem to even be aware of, and yet here you are, bleating away like some idiotic child copying his equally-idiotic parents.
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.
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.
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
Everyone /does/ pay something, idiot. Sales taxes. Property taxes. Social Security. Medicare. Gasoline.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
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.
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.
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)
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?".
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
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."
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.
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.
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
"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.
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
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.
The average Joe is not highly interested or informed about egghead space probes.
Sadly, you appear to be an average Joe. .8B to .3B (later the senate got it to be .5B). This year, the neo-cons are again trying to pull funds from CCdev and send it to SLS which will not be ready until 2020.
.5B for a mission. MSL cost us close to 3 B.
It was W that killed the shuttle and then the neo-cons underfunded Constellation. The fastest and most economical way to get us back into human launches was by creating CCDEV to build up private space. Sadly, the neo-cons this last year, gutted CCDEV by dropping
Bolden is doing all this to put the money into private space. Right now, the standard group (hatch, hutchinson, coffman, shelby, wolfe, etc) are working hard to kill that and get the trivial amount of money moved to the SLS. HOWEVER, if Bolden's bid works, USA will have human launch in 2014 with multiple launchers, and we will be going for mars in 2016-2017 with the red dragon. More importantly, red dragon will put as much on the surface as the MSL will (1 tonne), only it will cost less than
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
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.
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?
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.
When did the Feds implement a sales and property tax...idiot.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
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.
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.
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.