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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
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.
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.
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.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
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"
The thing is, the majority of all the representatives in both houses of Congress were able to reach agreement once the requirement was dropped that the agreement had to have the support of a majority of the Republicans. This is where the system broke down -- a minority of all the representatives could force a shutdown over the wishes of the majority because the (not defined anywhere in the Constitution) 'rules' of the House allowed a smaller group to enforce their wishes on the majority. Why did they do this? Because the pro-shutdown group could not win enough elections across the country to set policy the way they wanted it, so instead they thought shutdown and default were legitimate tactics. That is all on the Republicans. As the President stated afterward -- if you want to legitimately set policy, go out and win some elections!
That's nice. If you want to remove it, pass it on the house, pass it in the senate, then have the president sign it.
Any other way is contrary to way our government works and is supposed to work.
An agreement *was* reached back in July. By his own admission, Boehner reneged on it (page 2 if you just want to read).
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
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.
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.
The rules were recently changed so as to thwart bipartisan sensibility in the house.
Though at least 28 House Republicans have publicly said they would support a clean CR if it were brought to the floor -- enough votes for the government to reopen when combined with Democratic support -- a House rule passed just before the shutdown essentially prevents that vote from taking place. ...
Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), presiding over the chamber, told Van Hollen that the rule he was asking to use had been "altered" and he did not have the privilege of bringing that vote to the floor. In the ensuing back and forth, Chaffetz said the recently passed House Resolution 368 trumped the standing rules. Where any member of the House previously could have brought the clean resolution to the floor under House Rule 22, House Resolution 368 -- passed on the eve of the shutdown -- gave that right exclusively to the House majority leader, Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia.
To be honest, it sounds like you've put yourself in a shitty situation and prefer to blame others for it rather than accepting responsibility. I friendly advice: if you want sympathy, start by admitting your own faults instead of making excuses, regardless of the faults of others. The way you are going on now, you'll dig yourself into an ever deeper hole of anger and bitter resentment.
it sounds like you've put yourself in a shitty situation and prefer to blame others for it rather than accepting responsibility.
Bonus: I only had to look one page back in his comment history to find this gem:
"That's because you're a poor person, who will always be poor, thanks to your poor person mentality."
So, when other people are poor, it's because they're lazy and stupid; when he's poor, it's because the evil leftist government is oppressing him.
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,
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.
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.
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.
The problem with unmoderated "tax and spend" is that eventually you run out of other people's money. Then the problems get really bad. Much of the Western world is heading in that direction. Things that can't continue, won't.
Could we please consign this piece of trite Thatcherism to that rubbish pile of history where it belongs? Even the UKians don't believe it any longer and where ever it's been tried, it's lead to the same problems we are facing in the west at the moment. I.e. that the "landed gentry" has amassed more and more and more of the total wealth, and even in capitalist terms, this wealth doesn't do much productive (or at least not as much as it would do in the hands of others).
And that's just for starters.
Stefan Axelsson