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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?'"
> CONSTITUTIONALLY MANDATED BUDGET
The idea that Congress is constitutionally mandated to prepare a budget is one of many tea party memes that is easily debunked. The fact is the word budget doesn't even appear in the Constitution. Here's what factcheck.org has to say about it:
http://www.factcheck.org/2013/03/palins-constitutional-stretch/
Here is what the Constitution says about it:
Article I, Section 9, Clause 7: No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.
In addition, as John McCain recently pointed out, Congress has not followed a basic budgeting process for 20 years. Your attempt to stick this on Obama and Reid is moronic and unjustified by any reference in the Constitution.
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.
Ooooo, an easily testable claim! Let's get the latest poll numbers.
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/327937-poll-obamacare-gains-popularity-amid-shutdown
"The survey released Thursday found 38 percent of people believe ObamaCare is a good idea"
"A plurality of people, however, continue to have a negative view of the law. Forty-three percent think it is a bad idea, including 38 percent who feel strongly about their decision. And 17 percent have no opinion. "
43% is less than "At least half the fucking country", but it's more than the people who support, so I'll kind of give you that one, cause the real key number is next...
"Only 23 percent of people would continue a government shutdown in order to strip funding from the law."
If you're going to pretend to be doing things on behalf of the people, at least pay attention to what they're saying.
Very true. However, it's nowhere near as bad as the private debt to GDP ratio, and that's bad in all countries (except maybe Japan, which has be deleveraging for 20 years). It also isn't necessarily a Bad Thing, since one of the most important roles of government is to spend in a recession and tax in a boom economy. The problem is the fools who were running a deficit in a boom economy.
Most importantly, austerity has the opposite of the desired effect on the debt-to-GDP ratio, because it reduces the GDP faster than the debt. It's counter intuitive, but it's an empirical fact.
Had G.W. Bush not gone nuts giving his buddies tax breaks and if he hadn't dragged the U.S. into another war, we wouldn't have that debt now. When Clinton left office, we were slowly paying it down.
So yeah, crazy Republicans.