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US Scientific R&D Could Face Fiscal Cliff Doom
The tough economic times have had a huge effect on scientific research and development funding. The looming "fiscal cliff" may be the last straw for many programs. "The American science programs that landed the first man on the moon, found cures for deadly diseases and bred crops that feed the world now face the possibility of becoming relics in the story of human progress.
American scientific research and development stands to lose thousands of jobs and face a starvation diet of reduced funding if politicians fail to compromise and halt the United States' march towards the fiscal cliff's sequestration of federal funds."
Um, there is a little detail you may have missed. The President doesn't have the AUTHORITY to change the tax structure. Congress does;
Well, no, he does not -- but he was leading the negotiations between D and R earlier and the only reason these negotiations fell apart is because the ratio of 80% spending cuts and 20% tax increases was still not acceptable to the tea party.
I think they were seriously hoping to negotiate to 100% and 0% compromise.
yet - gee - the same electorate returned who returned Obama also returned a Republican majority in the all important House of Representatives.
Not sure what your point is. Representatives are not a single unit (like the President). There is a significant ratio of incumbent retention, mostly due to gerrymandering. Barely 5% of the races tend to be competitive or even in doubt (unless the incumbent retires). I wouldn't read into this at all.
How about withdrawing tax benefits given to religious groups and instead tax Churches like any other business and use the money to fund tax breaks for science. As far as I can see science has done many things to make our lives better in recent years where as religion has just stood in the way of the progress of science.
I'm happy if we tax the rich more, but our real problems are :
(1) Spending money on wasteful harmful shit, i.e. warfare (DoD, CIA, etc.), police state (FBI, NSA, etc.), drug war (DEA, etc.), etc.
(2) Permitting the financial industry to extract such insane rents on everything by not regulating them.
(3) Subsidizing established industries, especially oil, nuclear, and agricultural subsidies.
We could cut taxes by massive amounts if we halted all that waste, corruption, and exploitation.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
Funny, Canada has a balanced budget and we have a more robust welfare system(that less people are forced to take advantage of prior to old-age because it is robust and includes education and sometimes FORCED education programs.
We also spend 10% per capita on health care of what you spend and get LONGER life expectancies. Emergency treatment isn't as good(but only for SOME things, generally rarer things/situations that a country with 10% of your population base isn't going to have a very large absolute number of people needing attention for), but preventative measures are used in every possible case where they can have a strong benefit.
Most americans are so fucking narrow minded its mind-boggling. Even some american friends who I would otherwise consider relatively intelligent just can't see the fucking forest because they get hung up on one or two trees.