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The Cost of the US Government Shutdown To Science
An anonymous reader writes "Richard Schiffman writes in The Guardian that the Republican-led shutdown of the U.S. government caused significant damage to many scientific programs. For example: shortly before the shutdown started, over a hundred scientists had gathered to perform critical equipment tests on the James Webb Space Telescope — Hubble's successor — and that work was unable to continue without the government around. 'Not only did this delay cost the program an estimated $1M a day, but, given NASA's tight schedule, some tests may never get done now.' It doesn't stop there: 'This is only one of untold thousands of projects that were mothballed when Congress's failure to approve a budget defunded the US government at the start of the month. Federal websites were taken offline, scientists couldn't receive emails, attend meetings, or interact with their colleagues. Crucial environmental, food safety and climate monitoring programs were either suspended, or substantially scaled back.' Schiffman provides a few more examples, including one project that's losing a year's worth of work and equipment that will end up buried under snow in Antarctica. But it goes beyond even the basic funding issues; in many cases, scientific work is simply too intertwined with the government to continue without it. Andrew Rosenberg, the director of the Union of Concerned Scientists' center for science and democracy, said, 'It is all so interconnected now. Federal researchers collect data that is utilized by researchers in academia, by people working in industry, at state and local levels, so when you ask how dependent are we on the federal government in terms of science, it's a bit like asking: do you need your left leg?'"
Science is too important to be dependent on a funding source that is 17 trillion dollars in debt. It's *all* going to dry up at some point, and probably rather suddenly when it does. Talk to the history department if this is unclear.
With all the great thinkers in science, perhaps research into better funding models would be worth the effort.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Thank you G.O.P. and the Tea Party
These projects should put 1% aside starting on day 1 until they have a buffer that can let them survive 17 days without funding.
I've spent the last 30 years without a left leg, you insensitive clod....
How intertwined is it with government politics and, worse, "outcome based research'?
Why do you think you can still try to blame the victims?
You can thank your local friendly* republican party for the pleasure.
* to their own business only
The short answer is because the demands were unreasonable, and ending health care reform to appease a small minority of the country's demands doesn't make sense. The longer answer can be found in across a thousand other websites and is completely off-topic. Try going to another website if you're interested in talking about it. I mean, there's probably a youtube video related to the politics where you can get a vigorous text war going.
To redirect back on topic: why does it seem like everything the federal government does was declared "essential" and not affected EXCEPT for science? I don't hear a lot of discussion about what rules need to be changed for the next shutdown. Here's my suggestion: in the event of a shutdown, absolutely no congressional support services will be provided. No staffers can answer the phone from their congresspeople. No electricity in the capitol. No fucking gym open. No paychecks including back pay for congress persons. No security guards will be protecting the reps. None. Congressmen can hold meetings at a starbucks or something if they feel like it. Conversely, science research will absolutely not be affected.
I'd start a petition on change.org or writing a letter to congress urging that, but I think my time might better be spent wishing on a star.
The extremely partisan government removes funding for the scientific community for the equivalent of a blink of the eye and your entire life is ruined...
I think you have done more to prove the tea party's point about big government being dangerous. Tell me how living with an entity that is holding a gun to your head at all hours and has a proven history of being a soulless uncaring imbecile is the optimal outcome?
This reminds me of the legalization of gay marriage. Everyone had a raging debate over it yea or nay...no one seemed to ask why the governments opinion mattered at all.
Is that the government is spending too much money. It doesn't matter how you try to spin this, the fact of the matter is they need to start cutting costs.
Notice I'm not blaming one party over another. I just think the American people are doing a disservice to themselves when they accept mud-slinging in order to distract them from this fact. Keep your eye on the ball and demand that *any* party that is elected into power balance the budget and start paying back the debt.
Can someone explain why websites were taken down during the shutdown? I would have thought that the expenditure needed to keep a site up and running would already have been paid in advance, and that the sites were not so fragile that they could have withstood 2 weeks unattended operation.
Was it a precautionary or political matter?
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Because making "Science!" unessential could be parlayed into news articles.
Face it, a news article about the fact that government bureacrats had to empty their own trash wouldn't have nearly the appeal of "This Science! project was delayed by two weeks, and some of it may NEVER be done now! It was going to cure death, but now we've lost any chance of that, thanks to those EVIL Republicans!!!"
Note that running the National Parks was also considered nonessential, even to the extent that a lot of EXTRA work was done to shut them down - I especially like the traffic cones blocking the highway shoulders OUTSIDE Mount Rushmore - only put up in places from which someone could pull off the road (outside the Park, remember?) to take photos of Mount Rushmore....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
During the shutdown we were operating at 1/10th of the staff for our agency. No problems. All administrative and computer work was done on time, efficiently and the best thing about it -- the office was so much quieter. Kinda begs a question: Is it really necessary to maintain so many employees plus an employee union for any organizations in the Federal government if most of the days they do nothing but talk, drink coffee, browse web and watch movies?
why would websites be taken down immediately??? does someone have to sit there and update them every day manually?? are they so unstable that they have to be monitored 24/7?? don't they pay for hosting services by the month, or don't they pay their power bill if they host themselves by the month like everyone else does??? i would have thought that most websites could have existed just fine without babysitting for weeks if not at least for a month... the only reason is spite, just like why they spent extra money to erect barricades at open air memorials in DC and other places... and why they paid extra for 24/7 guards blocking access to privately run restaurants on public property. and why they paid extra for cones and patrols to keep people from stopping on public highways to view mt. rushmore. it was all a big show, they only shutdown about 15% of the government anyway and just wanted to make everyone feel bad so they would be mad at those in congress who want to get spending under control.... its like the debt ceiling, they could have kept going for much longer without borrowing, especially with part of the government shutdown! there was no fear of defaulting on interest payments, those are actually much smaller than the monthly income from tax collections.
People made hay out of the fact that shutdowns have happened many times in the past; it would stand to reason that if the shutdown was done improperly, you should be able to point to how it is different from other shutdowns.
The short answer is because the demands were unreasonable, and ending health care reform to appease a small minority of the country's demands doesn't make sense.
Do you know why you're a moron? Or as Stalin would say, a "useful idiot"?
Because you actually believe it's only a "small minority" of the country who wants to get rid of Obamacare.
You believe this because it's convenient to your ego to believe it....but it has no basis in reality whatsoever.
At least half the fucking country wants to see Obamacare go. Even many idiot liberals who have been Obama cheerleaders for years, are starting to change their minds after getting their (greatly increased) Obamacare quote.
Why do you think the Obamacare web site doesn't work? On fucking purpose, so that masses of idiots will continue to believe in the narrative that everyone and their mom wants this fucking bullshit and it's only a "tiny minority" of "anarchists" and "extremists" which disagrees.
And of course this mistaken, idiotic belief will make it a lot easier for dumb asses like you to agree wholeheartedly when Obama decides to declare martial law and arrest the GOP.
Nazi Germany, part 2. Welcome to it......asshole. Are you ready to meet Jesus?
> Did Obama let it happen?
Let?
Congress - the House and the Senate must work together to pass a BUDGET before the current one expires. That is then signed into law by the current President.
This CR business is a real problem, and the Senate seems uninterested in actually doing to work to create one. Instead of normal, yearly budgets passed in the spring, in plenty of time - we just keep taking onto what we had the previous year in a "crisis" mode not long before 1 October. That honestly IS in a good part Obama's fault. The democrat held Senate has not passed a budget since April 2009! And democrats still had the majority in spring 2010, so no excuses there.
Note that running the National Parks was also considered nonessential, even to the extent that a lot of EXTRA work was done to shut them down
It costs money for a proper shutdown, you can't just walk away from a place, otherwise that's violating actual obligations to maintain the properties.
- I especially like the traffic cones blocking the highway shoulders OUTSIDE Mount Rushmore - only put up in places from which someone could pull off the road (outside the Park, remember?) to take photos of Mount Rushmore....
Actually, those traffic cones were put up for a safety issue, so people didn't just drive around willy nilly, but had lanes to use. Really, they weren't any kind of effective barrier, they were just a way to help people drive a little safer.
But do believe the story you've been fed about it.
Has the time come to replace the present US governmental system with a swarm of bees? The present system is clearly grade C!
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
what i don't understand is why government is funded by these large, all-inclusive funding bills. who spends money like that? what individual or organization of any kind(commercial, non-profit, religious, whatever) do you know that plans their entire yearly budget at once with a take-it-or-leave-it proposition? let every funding measure stand or fall on it's own.
"This Science! project was delayed by two weeks, and some of it may NEVER be done now! It was going to cure death, but now we've lost any chance of that, thanks to those EVIL Republicans!!!"
Eh. Science! wasn't the only thing closed, nor was it the only thing in the news. For instance, there was that tiny little office that decides what kinds of beer you can sell, that was threatening to keep all the microbreweries from selling their halloween and thanksgiving brews.
News here is that apparently the Tea Party was too busy grandstanding to pull the jesus dildo out their ass and fix the laws so people could get drunk without their approval. It remains to be seen if they'll act on reducing the size of government through eliminating regulatory bodies now that the crisis is over.
Not only am I upset as a strong supporter of the sciences but as an investor I took out some (fortunately) relatively inexpensive options to protect my portfolio against a possible catastrophic default on the debt (which would most likely caused the stock and bond markets to crash).
These options (betting the market would go down) were relatively inexpensive because most people thought the Republicans would blink which of course they did. However since I'm retired and most of my assets are in equities and bonds, I would've been very upset if there was a huge drop in the markets like the recent crash even if it was just a short term hit. Thus my insurance policy.
To (hopefully) teach these idiot assholes a lesson, I plan on donating an equal amount of money that I spent on my options to whoever is challenging them in the mid-term elections. Unfortunately, the real root of the problem is the gerrymandering of the districts which has concentrated the Tea Partiers into their district which has made them beholden only to the Tea Party's radical views. Short of a legal challenge, I don't know a bette way to influence these elections. Still it is better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness.
May I suggest you do the same?
In their defense, the towel service at the gym was unavailable during the shutdown.
During the shutdown, a hundred-some countries sent delegations to Kumamoto and Minamata, Japan, for the signing of the new global Minamata Convention on Mercury, in which everybody agrees to reduce or eliminate production and use of mercury since it's toxic. US delegates were sent, but on a day-by-day basis. The wording of the Convention had been agreed, but some accompanying resolutions were hashed out on October 7 and 8. The Convention opened for signature on October 10 - but the US delegates had been told on the morning of October 9 to change their tickets and fly home. Presumably the US will sign sometime soon - we already have the world's strictest regulations on mercury, and getting lots of other countries to play by our rules is probably a good thing - but it never looks good to pull your delegation back in mid-week - and probably spend more doing so.
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
I don't get it.
There 's a lot of talk about how much this shut down has cost.
Shouldn't the discussion be about getting rid of that USD 17.000.000.000.000 debt??
That is only about USD 55.000 per inhabitant.
Do something about it. Seriously.
Privacy is terrorism.
To redirect back on topic: why does it seem like everything the federal government does was declared "essential" and not affected EXCEPT for science?
Because the standard used for "essential" is "Would stopping this put life and limb into immediate jeopardy?" As you'll note from the constant complaints about science funding or the lack thereof, spending on scientific research and development is the epitome of a long term investment, which generally means that turning it off won't cause any immediate hospitalizations.
And everyone wants to see their own special interest declared "essential." The Tea Party wanted the exception to be certain war monuments, for example. Why is a space telescope more essential than, say, Head Start? This is how politics works.
We need more government !
We need more government !
OMG where did the government go ?
Who shutdown the government we needed ?
Where did our government checks go ?
We need more government !
The cries of the hollow men.
The answer is obvious.
Stop creating government dependents.
Stop creating hollow men.
How exactly are you going to strip congress of the authority to declare staff essential? Moreover, frankly congressmen being able to get information I'd consider a heck of a lot more essential than things that did remain open like air travel. If congress is cut off from their staff we don't have the capacity for the democracy to respond to new and changing information.
The shutdown is stupid. Let's not make it more stupid by breaking important stuff.
So here's a question. Let's say you happen to have a full time job that pays you $50k a year. On January 1, do you look at all the bills you know you're going to have for the entire year and all the things you want to buy and spend all of that money on January 1? Or do you take all the money you have to spend on bills and put it aside somewhere so you don't inadvertently spend it on something else like a Ferrari? Or do you deal with things one month at a time?
The Republicans like to point to this. But the way a budget into the Senate is for it to be a House Budget not a House Republican conference budget. That means it passes with wide bipartisan support not narrow partisan support. Which means negotiating with the committee co-chairs and Nancy Pelosi.
If that were happening I'd be onboard blaming Harry Reid. Otherwise it is just Republicans wondering why Democrats won't pass the Republican budget. Why would they?
.... that this kind of dependence on government funding means that government will increasingly assert control over where and how research will be conducted in the future, and how (or whether) results will be reported? If your project's existence depends on a particular paymaster, are you really going to jeopardize it by angering him? Maybe you're okay with the present party in power, but if you give government this kind of control over your funding, sooner or later people with opposing ideas are going to be in charge and will use those same levers in ways you won't be happy with.
Careful there they live in their own world, don't upset that too much with logic and facts. What I don't get (being a State Govt employee myself) is why they are getting the 'furlough' pay back? I've been Furloughed one day a month (Up to recently here where we've gone to 1/2 a day a month) essentially since Obama took office. I won't be getting that pay back, ever, that's why it's called a 'furlough'... What the Fed govt employees got essentially was a PAID VACATION at OUR EXPENSE! Think about it, they got X number of days off, and they are getting that pay back... how in the Hell is that a 'furlough'??? What I really don't get is why it seems NO ONE ELSE HAS FIGURED THIS OUT YET...
It will be interesting to see if the above post gets modded up or down, Reid is at least as much of the problem as the "Tea Party".
A Shadeless room is a brighter room.
Portraying this as the "demands of a small minority" is b.s. The debate is about a disagreement about the future of the country. People opposing Obamacare believe it's a very bad idea, and the country as a whole at least is sitting on the fence about it.
Furthermore, Obama is responsible for this: he chose to ram through his health care reform without bipartisan support, and then he chose to take a "no compromise" stance on budget negotiations. The obvious consequence is that Republicans are going to hate him and torpedo everything he does. Obama is evidently unable to negotiate, administrate, or make compromises; he made his career as a "community organizer", i.e., getting people angry and sowing dissent.
I think the Republicans picked the wrong fight and handled this badly. Obamacare wasn't worth picking a big fight over; it will simply collapse by itself anyway. But make no mistake about it, both Bush and Obama have been dismal failures as presidents and their failures will haunt this country for decades to come. Both will be the laughingstock of historians to come.
Let's start by taking all the funding for that botched Obamacare web site and donating it to science. Then maybe these articles will matter to me in the slightest.
What a fucking moron. You think they had the NPS telling where to drive before the shutdown? Those cones were put up because your little man whore wanted to affect people in the worst way and cunts like you swallowed it all. No surprise there, I bet you swallow.
he chose to ram through his health care reform without bipartisan support
In partial defense, what was he supposed to do? The Democrats basically took the plan created by the Heritage Foundation and enacted by Mitt Romney in MA, because they thought that was the most progressive reform that could win any Republican support. (And contrary to what progressives might think, it was probably the most that could rely on support from the more conservative Democrats.) The Republicans said no anyway. So should Obama have simply scrapped the whole idea of health care reform?
I agree that the new bill is a huge mess, but the Republicans have offered nothing that would both reduce overall costs and make insurance more accessible (and affordable) to the people who don't already have it. And if they think that Heritage's plan is some radical leftist abomination that sends us down the road to serfdom, just imagine how they would have reacted if the Democrats tried to pass a national single-payer insurance plan.
I think the impact on science is the last thing they were worried about.
They are ready to let the entire country fall into ruin if they can make Obama look bad. If that means all our ongoing science research is set back or stopped, they'll do it.
Yes, because spending way more than you take in is entirely reasonable... It's how the intellectual elite spent their way to prosperity!
The GDP of the USA is $16 trillion, the Net government debt as % of GDP $17 trillion. That's above 100% GDP. Compared France has a 85% soemthign percent of the GDP as net government debt. And france is said to be "bankrupt" by US news paper. By the way the trick is that most folk in the USA only cite public debt, rather than net government debt (IMF criteria). By IMF criteria USA is far deeper in the debt than most of europe's countries, maybe excepted the PIGS. Go look up the wiki. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dept.svg
He probably shouldn't have antagonized the Republicans from the start. He might have done more horse trading and made more sacrifices elsewhere: the budget, gay rights, financial regulation, whatever.
Where he could have become active is scale back the abuses of the Bush era, the NSA, and all the other things he promised to do but has failed to. Health care reform could have waited a little longer.
Or he could have simply not passed health care reform. Maybe the economy needed to recover first. Probably a Republican president would have been better for passing this; in fact, if Romney had become president, we probably would have gotten reasonable health care reform, because he could have passed something better and more consistent with bipartisan support.
All of this blame game stuff is non-sense. The god damn bill has made it through all three branches of govt. What the F!@k are right-wingers still belly aching about?? If you remember your poli-sci classes you would know that the Congress is responsible for paying the bills not the Prez. Anywho, shouldn't we all start working on getting these folks in govt limited terms?? Think about it, most enterprises have some sort of experation policy on passwords. It should be the same for representatives in govt. ONE term and you're done. Finished. This country's real problem is that we have CAREER POLITICIANS. The job should be so difficult and thankless that no one would rightfully want to do it.
The debt ceiling was raised seven times during George W. Bush's administration. By your argument, when Bush was running up massive Federal deficits with the war in Iraq and tax cuts for the rich, the Senate (regained by the Democrats in January 2007) should have held up raising the ceiling until Bush agreed to end the war and reinstate the taxes.
That would've been the Tea Party/Ted Cruz/Soviet/North Korea style of negotiation. Just what our forefathers envisioned when they drafted the Constitution, right?
from 1990 to 2012 u.s government revenue a year was about 2 trillion(1990) to 3+ trillion 2012, about 40+ trillion in taxes for the past 23 years collected. And yet, we still can't have a universal healthcare system like Canada. Where did all the fucking money go to??? SS full of IOU's since government put their grabby hands in it to pay for other things. We don't need any more new fucking taxes on the books since money just disappears from the government so easily. I guess government does not care about pissing our hard earned money since it's not theirs to begin with. All the perks these government employees get especially the $400k a year pensions in California.
All of these bills were sent to the Senate just before and during the shutdown. 57 House Democrats voted for these bills. One to provide pay to furloughed federal employees passed 407-0.
Harry Reid said our way or no way. They wanted a blank check. So who really shutdown the government?
H.J.Res 70 â" National Parks, Monuments and Museums
H.J.Res 71 â" District of Columbia
H.J.Res 72 â" Veterans Benefits
H.J.Res 73 â" National Institutes of Health
H.J.Res 75 â" WIC
H.J.Res 77 â" FDA
H.J.Res 84 â" Head Start
H.J.Res 85 â" FEMA
H.J.Res 89 â" Federal Worker Pay
H.J.Res 90 â" FAA
H.R. 3223 â" Pay furloughed workers once the shutdown ends
H.R. 3230 â" Pay the Guard and Reserve Act
This coming from the same people that are complaining that there is no budget, yet instead of coming up with an actual budget that would pass the house *and* senate, *and* get signed by the president, they continued to try to pass little bits of funding instead of a passable budget - and in the long run wound up agreeing to a 'continuing resolution' to pay for a few more weeks so we can have this same argument and risk of defaulting on the debt *again* in January.
Wow, the article actually correctly used the technique of "begging the question" by starting with the assumption that everything is the Republicans fault, even though neither side could reach an agreement. And of course, Slashdot, is more than happy to take the bait and run, of course.
It was ALL their fault! And those morons will do it again in January.
The Republicans wanted the impossible and then when they couldn't have everything they wanted their way - and ONLY their way, they blamed the Democrats for not negotiating. And of course, not wanting to set a precedent of bowing to economic blackmail, they held their ground - for once.
Unbelievable.
Stop watching Fox News. They tell nothing but half truths and lies and as a result, completing misinforms you and their other listeners. And then you and the rest of their audience have the smugness that they are the only ones who know the truth.
More like propaganda.
Right. And the house gym was essential because house members are too cheap to lease a proper Washington apartment. They live in their offices, and the place would be a little rank if they couldn't shower for free.
He probably shouldn't have antagonized the Republicans from the start. He might have done more horse trading and made more sacrifices elsewhere: the budget, gay rights, financial regulation, whatever.
As far as the budget was concerned, he was in a rough spot with the economy - it was just spectacularly bad timing for dealing with budget problems. I'm not convinced that changing his mind on financial regulation or gay rights would have done any good, since the steps he took in those directions were fundamentally so small. And from what I can remember, the repeal of DADT was the first major policy change on gay rights and that came well after the Obamacare passage.
Where he could have become active is scale back the abuses of the Bush era, the NSA, and all the other things he promised to do but has failed to.
God, I wish - this was the main reason I voted for him in 2008 and he has been a spectacular disappointment on these issues, which is why I stayed home in 2012. But, again in partial defense, even his good-faith efforts were blindly opposed by the GOP, which went out of its way to prevent him from closing down Guantanamo. (Admittedly with some Democratic support, and may those legislators rot in hell.)
Health care reform could have waited a little longer.
Unlikely, since he probably would have lost Congress in 2010 regardless of what else happened. Either the right wing was going to accuse him of being a radical socialist, or they (and everyone else) were going to blame him for not doing more to improve the economy.
Probably a Republican president would have been better for passing this; in fact, if Romney had become president, we probably would have gotten reasonable health care reform, because he could have passed something better and more consistent with bipartisan support.
It's a nice fantasy, except both Romney and the Republicans have moved so far to the right that anything they passed was likely to be even more favorable to the insurance companies and even less effective at bringing insurance to the people who don't have it. What exactly is their plan to reduce costs? Malpractice tort reform? Screwing over the trial lawyers, while it might be a worthy goal on general principle, would barely put a dent in the price of insurance. And people with pre-existing conditions are simply fucked.
To say he passed it without bipartisan support is completely disingenious. It implies bipartisan support was possible. Republicans came up with Obamacare in the first place during clinton, and Romney enacted Obamacare years ago. Liberals wanted single payer. We compromised in a way that gave republicans everything they wanted, save Obama's name not being on it. Bipartisan support was never going to happen unless it was called "Republicancare" and Obama resigned as part of the deal.
He "rammed it through" after it was obvious to anyone paying attention that republicans wouldn't allow healthcare reform until it was a republican president doing it.
Our failure to address this issue stems from a general lack of appreciation for the role of energy within the economy. Energy production underlies all economic activity, and the quality of this production comes down to the ratio of energy return over energy invested, which is largely a factor of material and land use. More energy dense sources should facilitate a higher return, and this is why nuclear energy is of such great importance in this matter. While conventional nuclear technology remains expensive and unpopular, this does not in any way detract from the incredible potential bound up within an atomic nucleus or what might be achieved with the right technological approach.
Currently, there is quite a bit of interest (in the nuclear community) in pursuing a nuclear liquid fuel system (see MSR); one which was pioneered with a very successful prototype back in the 60s. Unfortunately, the lack of general interest in a nuclear energy solution has hampered innovation, and we sit pretty much in the same position we were in decades ago, accept that now things are worse, we have less time to respond to problems arising from increasing carbon within the atmosphere/ocean, and we have fewer resources with which to save ourselves.
Current global energy-per-capita is around 2 kW, while in the United States energy-per-capita is closer to 10 kW. Merely doubling the global metric will require a radical new approach to energy production, and it is not at all clear whether we are capable of generating the Will to do so. It should be abundantly clear that not supplying ample resources as our population peaks during the onset of all of these environmental problems is a recipe for global disaster.
This issue of consciousness is really the most important matter we face today.
i thought let us shut down government, lots waste, then i read about tourists, ppl come to visit USA, and get denied entry we should not allow that to hapen, i travel a lot overseas i tell people hey you should check some of our musems out, i particulrly like WPAFB air for muse, and the marine museume is also excelent, then all the stuff in D.C. natural history ...some people took time of work, paid to travel to usa and all are national parks were shut down!?
So the government's evil master plan involves inconsequential and easily circumvented traffic cones?
Obama is a fiend! Coming up with such a horrible way to disadvantage nobody who actually wanted to stop.
He should have gone with the helicopter plan.
If it is outside of the national park area then it is under the jurisdiction of the state government, none of which shut down during this period. If it really came down to that, they could have just dispatched their state troopers just like anything else.
This is just a stupid typical politician move to get people to pay attention to them. This is also why we can't have a balanced budget: Instead of taking away useless programs, they decide to cut funding from things that people will complain the loudest about, that way they can keep all of their pet projects.
People like you eat it bait, line, and sinker.
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
He probably shouldn't have antagonized the Republicans from the start.
Great, except they were already opposed to him in a monolithic block that sheds even the semblance of honesty.
Just look who they threw up against Obama, the lying sociopathic Mitt Romney who had previously created the same plan in his state, and proclaimed it a plan for the nation. Then instead of saying he changed his mind, or had a better plan, he prevaricated around it.
He might have done more horse trading and made more sacrifices elsewhere: the budget, gay rights, financial regulation, whatever.
He made sacrifices in each and every one of those areas. The budget? He conceded on the tax cuts, on the spending reforms, and more. Gay rights? Yeah, he stopped supporting DoMA and DADT, which he had previously not opposed. Financial regulation? Seen any Wall Street types prosecuted yet? Nope, instead they quietly walked away with their bailouts.
Health care reform could have waited a little longer.
Or he could have simply not passed health care reform.
Just like all the Presidents since Nixon, screwing the American people the whole time.
Maybe the economy needed to recover first.
Republicans opposed the very steps that would have helped the economy spending in their hysterical pleas for Austerity.
Probably a Republican president would have been better for passing this; in fact, if Romney had become president, we probably would have gotten reasonable health care reform, because he could have passed something better and more consistent with bipartisan support.
Romney, the guy who passed the model for the ACA, then couldn't own up to it, because it would have spoiled his political chances, could have done better?
Well, yeah, because Democrats wouldn't be blinded by their own partisanship to try to make Republicans completely own it, but would actually work on it?
This is not a good argument for the Republican side or for Obama to do nothing. Especially citing the most Mendacious candidate to run for public office in decades.
It's not just life and limb. Protecting property is also considered "essential". So critical tests to prevent the loss of a billion dollar satellite that couldn't not be performed at any other time should have been essential enough to bring in the government employees needed. I like to blame the Republicans as much as anybody, but if the summary is true then it's the NASA manager who didn't call his people back and jeopardized the telescope work who done F'd up this one.
That the potential loss in property was a future-cost is not relevant, the early Oct. time-frame was the only time the schedule would allow the tests, even if the failures wouldn't be noticed till after a (explosive?) launch. The THREAT to property was immediate if not the consequence.
"You saved 1968." - Ms. Valerie Pringle to the crew of Apollo 8
Frankly, it doesn't matter what "liberals" want. What matters is what the vast majority of the country wants, and until the vast majority of the country has settled on anything, the status quo should remain. Even if Obama had a thin majority for Obamacare, that wouldn't have given him a mandate to impose it on the country.
Yes, and that might well have been the best choice, also so that the economy would have had time to recover. Obama should have done what he ran on and got elected for: rein in the NSA, restore the rule of law, and restore Constitutional protections of civil liberties.
I voted for Obama in 2008, and I think he has ended up a worse president even than Bush, and that is saying something.
As far at the Tea Party is concerned, this is doubtless a feature of their political tantrum, not a bug.
I don't think he has made a "good faith effort". I think he has tried to do what he believes is the right thing on every issue and has been unwilling to give his opponents the benefit of doubt. In fact, his rhetoric alone is clear and uncompromising.
By "a little longer", I mean a couple of presidencies. There was no reason for Obama to take this on; he had more than enough other things to do.
I can hardly imagine a bigger giveaway to insurance companies than Obamacare, with people being forced to buy coverage and services they don't want, and a nearly complete lack of cost control measures.
My family wouldn't have chosen expensive end of life care and we have had high deductibles, but you bet that with Obamacare, we are going to get every test and treatment we can talk and force doctors into giving. Why not? Someone else is paying for it.
If it was outside the national park area, then why would national park workers do it?
If there's anybody who is swallowing the bait, it's somebody who believes a bunch of orange traffic cones represent some nefarious plan to cause great outrage in the community.
I'd be more likely to believe it's a false flag operation to make it look as if the park service was trying to make things look bad, but that requires a bit too much of a conspiracy oriented.
I see. You feel the same way about Obamacare as I do about farm welf....subsidies.
"Republican-led shutdown of the U.S. government"
Whoa, hold the phone. You do realize that the last budget proposal to be rejected by the Democrat-led Senateprior to the shutdown was only rejected because it stipulated that the president and congress members had to participate in Obamacare just like everyone else, right? No defunding Obamacare. No delaying Obamacare.
The Democrats in the Senate and the White House had a choice: Abide by their own law and be bound by it just like their constituents, or shut the government down until the other side gives in and lets them get away with being above "the law of the land". We all saw which path the Democrats took.
This is just a stupid typical politician move to get people to pay attention to them. This is also why we can't have a balanced budget: Instead of taking away useless programs, they decide to cut funding from things that people will complain the loudest about, that way they can keep all of their pet projects.
Add up Social Security, Medicare, interest on the debt, the Defense Department, and Veteran's Affairs. Subtract tax revenues. You're already way into red ink. I'm not counting the CDC, FEMA, FDA, NIH, or any of the other nickle-and-dime line items.
So, according to your definition of "useless programs," which would you propose to cut? Social Security? Medicare? Veterans Affairs? Do please be specific.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
I don't believe it given the speed at which science advances and the amount of time it takes between experimental steps, publication or analysis. Have you ever worked with the US Government? A two week delay has the same impact as one of us taking a lunch break at work. We can only blame that for the delay when we're behind or are trying to make a point.
Congressmen work pretty long hours. What's the upside of having congressmen traveling more?
The short answer is because the demands were unreasonable, and ending health care reform to appease a small minority of the country's demands doesn't make sense. The longer answer can be found in across a thousand other websites and is completely off-topic.
After the administration has handed a long list of waivers to the ACA to large organizations, and has now delayed the employer mandate till 2015 (which will have a variety of implications), It isn't clear that delaying the individual mandate, the same as the other delays, for a piece of legislation that is planned to ultimately fail, would be a bad thing at all.
Here's my suggestion: in the event of a shutdown, absolutely no congressional support services will be provided. No staffers can answer the phone from their congresspeople. No electricity in the capitol. No fucking gym open. No paychecks including back pay for congress persons. No security guards will be protecting the reps. None. Congressmen can hold meetings at a starbucks or something if they feel like it. Conversely, science research will absolutely not be affected.
One could get the sense that you consider the Government-Science complex more important than anything else the government does.
I think your comment is more +11 dreamy, not +5 "insightful".
All of the above.
Social Security? Time to means test.
Medicare? The US government spends $4,100 per citizen on medical care, the British government spends $3,300. Why can't the US government give us universal coverage and an $800 refund instead of always demanding more for less?
Veterans' Affairs? See above.
Defense? Why do we have troop in Japan? In Germany? In Korea? These are first-world nations. If they want more troops they can grow their own armies. Demobilize these soldiers along with the ridiculous robot cheetah and iron man programs.
Cutting these programs to realistic levels will allow you to default on the ~$5 trillion in debt held by Federal agencies, reducing interest payments as well.
I'd run that through Babelfish if I knew what language it was supposed to be.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Congress is on track to work 119 days this year. Long hours? Hah!
AC troll.
For those not paying attention, This is the first shutdown that spent unknown amounts of money to close down things that should have simply sat there. As mentioned above, the shoulders of the road outside Rushmore were coned off; national parks, even ones that aren't normally closed or patrolled... closed and patrolled heavily; closing down open air national monuments (normally open 24/7); shutting down non-essential, but revenue positive programs; forcing private businesses to close on the thinnest excuses. The list goes on.
These are all new. These weren't the result of a government shutdown, these were the result of this government shutdown.
Someone in the executive branch decided that if Republicans were going to shut down the government, then they were going to take it upon themselves to make the shutdown as painful as possible. The shutdown should have been about saving money until a budget came about. Instead, it became about spending money to ensure pain. This is a new policy, and one worth noting.
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
There aren't enough people to means test off of social security to make a real dent. Don't worry we will be having universal coverage. Personally I don't believe that we will see any decrease in the cost of care. But say we did, using your numbers we would save $264B which is a nice chunk of change, but not hardly enough to arrest the growth in debt. No love for the robot cheetah? That little guy is awesome. I could not agree more about demobilizing troops, but come on lets cut some real money. Lets cut the F35. Defaulting on securities that certain non-Fed agencies hold. The fed should buy them for cash and then just retire them. I don't believe this is legal under current law but maybe Obama can just insist on it in the next shutdown. This would also give the government the ability to run infinitely large deficits which it will need to do. Of course the money may be worthless at some point but it should buy us a few years.
Liberals wanted single payer.
Frankly, it doesn't matter what "liberals" want
Pay attention to the thread: I was using that as proof that Obamacare WAS a compromise, not a bill that was rammed through without discussion like you were saying.
He "rammed it through" after it was obvious to anyone paying attention that republicans wouldn't allow healthcare reform until it was a republican president doing it.
Yes, and that might well have been the best choice, also so that the economy would have had time to recover. Obama should have done what he ran on and got elected for: rein in the NSA, restore the rule of law, and restore Constitutional protections of civil liberties.
Again, you're ignoring context. I was pointing out that there was never going to be any bipartisan support.
Perhaps you missed it, but clearly $3,300 isn't enough - http://slashdot.org/story/13/10/17/2337204/british-nhs-may-soon-no-longer-offer-free-care. Partly because much of the NHS is already stealth privatised no doubt though.
Just because liberals staked out an extreme and unworkable position doesn't mean that Obamacare is a "compromise". The "compromise" I was referring to wasn't even between different health care positions, it could have involved lots of other issues.
And as I was saying: if Obama couldn't pass health care reform with bipartisan support, he should have passed nothing at all. There was no urgency to pass health care reform, and there certainly wasn't any urgency to pass the turd that Obama actually passed.
Bad example.
An open air memorial that is normally open 24/7 and actually took resources to close, while leaving it open would not have? Please. That wasn't a decision to save money on non-essential services. That was a decision to punish Republicans.
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
An open air memorial that is normally open 24/7 and actually took resources to close, while leaving it open would not have?
Groundskeeping, maintenance and security are not free. The federal government is charged with maintaining (i.e. not abandoning) the sites, and the cheapest and easiest way to maintain anything is to close off public access.
LOL.
Boehner screamed 'shut it down'
Cruz screamed 'shut it down'.
Cantor screamed 'shut it down'.
All tea baggers screamed 'shut it down'.
Most neo-cons screamed 'shut it down'.
The few remaining real republicans said, lets compromise and create a deal.
But it is Obama's fault.
Just amazing.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
An open air memorial that is normally open 24/7 and actually took resources to close, while leaving it open would not have?
I even got you some numbers to satisfy my own curiosity:
According to the National Park Service's FY13 Greenbook, the National Mall and adjoining shrines and memorials (which include the National World War II Memorial) are treated as a single item and cost the National Park Service $32,282,000 to maintain in 2012, or over $88,200 each day.
These costs do not include Park Police, which are listed as a separate $79,763,000 expenditure in the DC area alone in '12.
Here in Colorado we have republican judges that I think that would charge a rape victim money and say that it was money owed for services rendered. It seems like the GOP has lost sight of what a balanced budget, real science, and even justice operates. Basically, they have forgotten how to lead. And the corruption in that party is just horrible.
Sadly, it is not much better in the dems.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
There is a sizable portion of population that thinks Obamacare was a bad idea because it doesn't go far enough, e.g. Socialists in favor of single payer. Also, and this is not a joke, several polls show that the Affordable Care Act is much more popular that Obamacare.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
> The short answer is because the demands were unreasonable, and ending health care reform to appease a small minority of the country's demands doesn't make sense.
This is basically decrying the function of the congress as representative. If a subset has the political power to do so, it would be against their represented interests not to wield it. The fact that you do not agree with the tradeoff, is irrelevant. They are not representing you in this regard.
BS.
The tea baggers have prevented the gov. from raising taxes, even though they are at an all time low.
In addition, teabaggers and neo-cons constantly blocked cuts that they did not like.
for example, both teabaggers/neo-cons continue to push the SLS which will cost us 30B and not be ready until 2022 at the earliest (it is now expected for man's first flight on it at 2025, and several studies say that it will run closer to 50B). So, where are they getting the money for this nightmare? By gutting private space inside of NASA. Even now, when it was agreed to that private space would get a TOTAL of 2B, for funding 3 companies to be ready by 2015, the neo-cons cut that and has forced NASA to limit the downselect to ONE private space company.
Then we have again, both neo-cons/teabaggers pushing the nightmare of keeping our M1A1 tank lines going. Yet, the DOD IS SCREAMING THAT IT IS NOT THE RIGHT EQUIPMENT FOR FUTURE wars. Worse, we have plenty of core M1A1 tanks. But the house is blocking the stoppage of the line.
It continues over and over and over.
The problem is not that we are not making spending cuts.
| The real problem is that 49 teabaggers in the house are blocking compromise on ANYTHING from happening, and the neo-cons are going along because the teabaggers are threatening them at the next election.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
One could get the sense that you consider the Government-Science complex more important than anything else the government does.
Hey man, "news for nerds"!
I think your comment is more +11 dreamy, not +5 "insightful".
It was a suggestion, not a prediction. I realize that leaving congress completely unprotected if they fail to do their job, and keeping science going when politics have failed at a basic level is unrealistic. But I'd rather err on that side than err on the side of congress gets to do whatever the hell they want without consequence (thanks gerrymandering and voter ADD) and scientific research gets impeded because of that. Or anyone else for that matter, but the article is specifically about science.
This post is what happens with you give computers and internet access to Alzheimer victims.
I don't have any fucking sympathy for these scientists.
After all they brought us GMO's, the DSM, Carbon Tax, Fluoride (chemical warfare same ingredients as Obummer's red line in Syria) in the Water.
How about sympathy for economists.
After all they brought us Fiat, Foreign Bankster owned Monetary system
They break their oath day after day when they have the power to regulate the monetary system right there in the mother fucking Constitution already -- yet choose to create debt via interest instead, now the numbers are exponential and it can't roll over. It's that fucking game they taught ya in school (back when a school was a school) where one guy get's $1000 a day for 30 days vs someone who get's one Penny on day one two pennies day two--by day 31 it's 10 Million dollars. But where you forget this story (as you drink your fluoridated water for the soft kill) is that this story doesn't only go on for 30 days.
You hear about 17 Trillion, you don't hear about the Derivatives 200 Trillion --- this thing is so far beyond your comprehension in a BAD WAY.
So knowing this,
the spying, the DHS, the bullets, the MRAPS, the manpods, the gunrunning/gunbanning, the corruption, the mosad in our vaults, the obamacare, the gmo's, the borders and immigration/vs dhs nazi police state targeting the people, the spies wanting your banking and communications, the obamacare (minus tooth care, eyecare, nutrition, clean food, not radioactive food, not monsanto food, clean water, not Nestle water, National Parks (And all the bills to make this a new national park--SO WE CAN Agenda 21 the people out of the geographic location--no go zones) all starts to makes sense. The No Constitution Zone 100 miles around the border. The outsourcing of spying to corporations to avoid being hung for treason.
Yeah that obamacare website went out deliberately and maliciously as a PROBLEM --- in the PROBLEM REACTION SOLUTION! TO steer the fucking debate forever forward. Now you'll flap your lips about code, costs, skils, how to "FIX" it, instead of asking WHY DOES THE GOVERNMENT NOT PRINT IT'S OWN MONEY, WHY ISN'T HEADS ROLLING OVER BENGAZI, WHY arent' IRS fuckers in Ft Leavenworth/Trial, why arent' Clapper and Alexander in Ft Leavenworth/Trial, why aren't the oath breakers in Ft Leavenworth/Trial why aren't the banksters in Ft Leavenworth/Trial
They were GUN RUNNING in Bengazi, the IRS is exploiting private data and attacking targets, the same with psychiatrists using the DSM-5, the same with, the same with the same with -- full scale full spectrum exploitation.
A generation of European Socialist Fluoridated children from common core to join forces with illegal immigration comes next.
This potus don't need to be IMPEACHED, this fuck wad needs to be ARRESTED.
The Cost of the US Government Science.
The government was shutdown for an extremely short time, and no one noticed, except for the few people that keep claiming the same nonsense.
People like you eat it bait, line, and sinker.
Thank God I didn't eat the hook too
All I know is we lost one of our key scientists to South Korea.
He's at Samsung now.
Way to go, Terrorists!
Social Security would be a good start. It's actually designed from the ground up to never pay you anything unless you "beat the odds" so to speak. Literally. The government produced a propaganda video that somebody shoved in my face at slashdot which says its an insurance program that provides you benefits for when you retire, die, or become disabled. The reality is that it only really does one of those things. The death benefit is a WHOPPING $250 no matter how much you paid into it, and it only goes to your spouse if you were married at the time of death. No spouse? Spouse dead? Divorced? Well then no death benefit. Quite an amazing insurance policy when in the US it is basically illegal to handle a dead body without a license - you are forced by law to pay somebody amounts starting at $1,000 to carry the body from the coroner's office. And then of course, whatever happens after that costs even more (be it cremation, interment, etc.)
Age 65 was originally chosen because they expected most people to never actually live that long to retire. Even if they did, they wouldn't collect for very long. It's like going to a casino where the odds are always in favor of the house. The shitty thing is, you're required by law to gamble in this casino. Social security is now breaking though because people are living longer than the government intended.
Quite a good deal for the government anyways though, because it gets to keep $6 billion per year to keep the lights on in the social security administration offices, and if that is too much money then it just comes out of what the so called beneficiaries take in - the government gets its cut of the pie first.
Personally, because my health is what it is (renal failure) I fully anticipate that I'll never live past the age of retirement. I've also already been denied disability, even though it's hard to work because of complications of nephrotic syndrome. But, I still have to pay into social security anyways, knowing full well that it'll never pay me back. So not only will I call social security useless, I'll say it's just a downright drain. My dad paid at least $100k into it over his working career (he maxed it out for about 15 years or so, and came pretty damn close to maxing it out for another 10,) died at 55, and because he was divorced he received no death benefit. Social security gave absolutely nothing in return, neither to him nor his heirs - it's such a wonderful program.
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
As a child I was taught that it takes two to tango, or in this case to disagree. Why is this a Republican-led shutdown? The liberal opinion seems to be if you don't agree with my opinion your being unreasonable. I'm growing so sick and tired of this attitude. It's beginning to show that we're a nation of idiots who don't seem to understand the impact on our nation's future. Does no one seem to understand that we can't afford the promises we're making are not affordable except to those who don't have to pay for them? I too can live off welfare, but somebody has to pay the piper eventually.
A computer may beat me at Chess, but I always win at Kickboxing.
Some student doing their university work asks a prof why there is a bunch of data missing for a bunch of consecutive years...
We have 100 years worth of data, but for much of a decade a political leader of little importance tried to suppress much of the scientific research of the day as it did not support his political ideology.
which isn't much better than:
It was caused by a political party who refused to fund government by throwing a hissy fit over a political issue of the day. "What was the issue?" Affordable Healthcare. "Oh they wanted it?" No, no they did not.
Read the details of my proposed law at http://puremalarkey.com